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Paper short abstract:

This paper is exploring dignity and everyday justice in the cases mediated by Kenyan sex worker paralegals working in Nairobi and surrounding areas.

Paper long abstract:

Community paralegal programs emerged in the contexts where access to justice is difficult for poor, geographically isolated, often vulnerable and marginalised communities. In Kenya, community paralegals are employed in the national HIV response programs targeting Key Populations, such as sex workers who are at the centre of this paper. Community paralegals are not lawyers, but they are familiar with legal structures as well as with the everyday challenges experienced by the communities they work with and belong to. Their role is that of facilitator in their clients’ access justice journeys through formal justice structures or through mediation after experiences of violence or other injustices (Maru and Gauri 2018, Hinman et al 2023).

This paper explores the concept of dignity as central feature of the everyday justice as it unfolds in everyday work of sex worker community paralegals in Nairobi and surrounding peri-urban areas. It is based on three years of work with a group of sex worker community paralegals, and centres the cases mediated by these paralegals. The analysis of cases reveals centrality of dignity in clients’ needs when accessing justice in the poor communities that these paralegals live and work in.