Chi Adanna Mgbako

Chi Adanna Mgbako is clinical professor of law and director of the Walter Leitner International Human Rights Clinic at Fordham Law School. She and her students work in partnership with social justice organizations on projects that have focused primarily on anti-carceral human rights advocacy, access to justice, gender equity, racial justice, sex workers’ rights, and queer rights. She has conducted human rights fieldwork in many countries, including Botswana, Cambodia, Ethiopia, India, Japan, Kenya, Mauritius, Namibia, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, South Africa, Uganda, and the United States.

The clinic has engaged in numerous projects under Mgbako’s leadership, including petitions to United Nations human rights bodies documenting abuses against African sex workers and people in prison; human rights trainings on women and HIV/AIDS, queer refugee rights, and female genital cutting; reports on police abuse of marginalized communities, employment discrimination against transgender people, and access to safe abortion; legal research for a successful lawsuit challenging the forced HIV testing of sex workers; mobile legal aid clinics in rural communities; and global gender equality education campaigns.

Mgbako is the author of To Live Freely in This World: Sex Worker Activism in Africa (New York University Press). Her scholarship has appeared or is forthcoming in the University of Pennsylvania Journal of Law and Social Change, Harvard Journal of Law & Gender, Oxford Research Encyclopedia of African History, Georgetown Journal of International Law, Harvard Human Rights Journal, and the Yale Journal of International Affairs, among other publications. Her writing for the popular press and scholar-activism have been featured in the New York Times International Edition, BBC News Focus on Africa, HuffPost, the Guardian, and the Washington Post: Monkey Cage.

Mgbako earned her J.D. from Harvard Law School, where she received the Gary Bellow Public Service Award, and her B.A., magna cum laude, from Columbia University. Following law school, she served as the Harvard Henigson Human Rights Fellow in the West Africa Project of the International Crisis Group, where she advocated for community-based models of justice in Liberia and political reform in Nigeria, and as the Crowley Fellow in International Human Rights at Fordham Law School, where she co-produced a documentary on women and HIV/AIDS in Malawi.

Mgbako has been honored as a New York Law Journal Rising Star, National Law Journal Top 40 Lawyer of Color Under 40, Fordham Law School’s Public Interest Faculty Member of the Year, and a recipient of the Police Reform Organizing Project’s Citizen of the City Award. In 2017, she received the Association of American Law Schools’ M. Shanara Gilbert Award, one of the highest honors in clinical legal education.

Education

• Harvard Law School, JD, 2005
• Columbia University, BA, magna cum laude, 2001

Representative Publications

Books

To Live Freely in This World: Sex Worker Activism in Africa, NYU Press (2016)

• Reviewed in Affilia: Journal of Women and Social Work, African Affairs, DiGeST: Journal of Diversity and Gender Studies, Feminist Collections, Feminist Review, Human Rights Review, Human Rights Quarterly, International Feminist Journal of Politics, Perspectives on Politics, Tits and Sass.

Articles, Book Chapters and Reviews, and Policy Reports

Anti-Carceral Human Rights Advocacy, University of Pennsylvania Journal of Law and Social Change (with Johnson et al) (forthcoming 2023)

The Mainstreaming of Sex Workers’ Rights as Human Rights, 43 Harvard Journal of Law & Gender 92 (2020) (solicited) 

Sex Work/Prostitution in Africa, essay solicited for Oxford Research Encyclopedia of African History (2019) & forthcoming in Oxford Encyclopedia of African Women’s History, Oxford University Press, Hodgson et al, eds. (2020)

The Case for Decriminalization of Sex Work in South Africa, 44 Georgetown Journal of International Law 1423 (with Bass et al) (2013)

U.S. Global AIDS Funding and Its Discontents: Why the Supreme Court Must Strike Down the Anti-Prostitution Pledge, 8 Yale Journal of International Affairs 133 (2013)

Book Review, Out in Africa: LGBT Organizing in Namibia and South Africa by Ashley Currier 2012, 35 (2) Human Rights Quarterly 517  (2013)

Witchcraft Accusations and Human Rights: Case Studies from Malawi, 43 George Washington International Law Review 389 (with Katherine Glenn) (2012)

Engaging Legal Dualism: Paralegal Organizations and Customary Law in Sierra Leone and Liberia in The Future of African Customary Law, Cambridge University Press, Fenrich et al, eds. (with Kristina Scurry Baehr) (2011)

Sex Work and Human Rights in Africa, 33 Fordham International Law Journal (with Laura A. Smith) (2010)

Penetrating the Silence in Sierra Leone: A Blueprint for the Eradication of Female Genital Mutilation, 23 Harvard Human Rights Journal 11 (with Cave et al) (2010)

Forced Eviction and Resettlement in Cambodia: Case Studies from Phnom Penh, 9 Washington University Global Studies Law Review 39 (with Cave et al) (2010)

Exporting Confusion: U.S. Foreign Policy as an Obstacle to the Implementation of Ethiopia's Liberalized Abortion Law, Leitner Center for International Law and Justice (with Degol et al) (2010)

Silencing the Ethiopian Courts: Non-Judicial Constitutional Review and its Impact on Human Rights, 32 Fordham International Law Journal 259 (with Degol et al) (2008)

We Will Still Live: Confronting Stigma and Discrimination Against Women Living with HIV/AIDS in Malawi, 31 Fordham International Law Journal 528 (with Fenrich and Higgins) (2008)

Rights-Based Sex Worker Empowerment Guidelines: An Alternative HIV/AIDS Intervention Approach to the 100% Condom Use Programme, Sampada Gramin Mahila Sanstha (SANGRAM) (with Smith et al) (2008)

Nigeria's Faltering Federal Experiment, International Crisis Group (2006)

Liberia: Resurrecting the Justice System, International Crisis Group (2006)

Front Line Rwanda: Disappearances, Arrests, Threats, Intimidation and Co-option of Human Rights Defenders 2001 - 2004, Frontline, the International Foundation for the
Protection of Human Rights Defenders (with Toy-Cronin and Waldorf) (2005)

'Ingando' Solidarity Camps: Reconciliation and Political Indoctrination in Post-Genocide Rwanda, 18 Harvard Human Rights Journal 201 (2005)

Commentary

Sex worker activism has exploded throughout Africa, The Washington Post’s Monkey Cage (with Kim Yi Dionne) (July 8, 2016)

The Global Labor Rights Movement You’ve Likely Never Heard Of, HuffPost (May 26, 2016)

Overturn anti-prostitution pledge to support sex workers and combat HIV, The Guardian (April 22, 2013)

African Voices of Legal Empowerment, HuffPost (January 10, 2013)

There Are No 'Perfect Victims,' HuffPost (August 14, 2012)

Police Confiscation of Condoms from Sex Workers Compromises Public Health and Fuels HIV/AIDS, HuffPost (July 20, 2012)

New York Lawmakers Compromise Public Health by Failing to Pass "No Condoms as Evidence" Bill, Rewire (July 3, 2012)

Greek Sex Workers Face Forced HIV Tests; Malawi Workers Fight Back, Ms. Magazine Blog (June 11, 2012)

Why the Women's Rights Movement Must Listen to Sex Workers, Rewire (May 22, 2012)

Why Economic Justice Is Central to LGBT Rights,  HuffPost (May 7, 2012)

Criminalization of Prostitution as a Violation of Sex Workers' Health Rights, IntLawGrrls (December 17, 2011)

Police Abuse of Sex Workers: A Global Reality, Largely Ignored, Rewire (December 15, 2011)

Africa's LGBT Rights Movement,  HuffPost (May 3, 2011)

The Architecture of Maternal Death, Rewire (with Tarek Meguid)  (April 4, 2011)

Aiding Children Accused of Witchcraft, HuffPost (March 14, 2011)

Witchcraft Legal Aid in Africa, The New York Times (International Edition)  (February 17, 2011)

Honoring the International Day to End Violence Against Sex Workers, HuffPost (December 14, 2010)

Sierra Leone Youth Call for an End to Female Genital Mutilation, HuffPost (November 26, 2010)

Three African Vignettes: Nigeria, Benin, Rwanda, Afrik-News (September 15, 2010)

Africa's Women Turn 50, HuffPost (20 August 2010)

Rwanda: Media Censorship Will Breed Resentment, allAfrica.com (August 11, 2010)

US Foreign Policy and Unsafe Abortion in Africa, openDemocracy.net (August 3, 2010)

Rwanda: Govt 'Manipulates' Genocide Memory, allAfrica.com (July 21, 2010)

A Call for Sex Workers’ Rights in Africa, Pambazuka News (June 24, 2010)