Patoo Abraham led some commercial sex worker in lagos demanding that commercial sex be legalized in the country. She has become famous for fighting for the rights of prostitutes, but what she - and those she is trying to help - do to make a living is illegal and frowned upon by many in the country.  

Abraham is not only proud of her profession but is also campaigning to ensure that prostitution is legalised and that sex workers are respected in Africa's most populous country. 

The 48-year-old has led a couple of protests in Lagos, Nigeria's commercial capital, demanding the rights of prostitutes in a country where sex vendors suffer physical harm at the hands of their punters. 

Under the auspices of different organisations, scores of prostitutes marched on the streets of Lagos, chanting provocative slogans. 

This boldness is unprecedented, and the protesters carried their signature red umbrellas and T-shirts with the inscription "Sex work is work, we need our rights." 

"We are tired of dying in silence," Abraham, who heads the Nigerian chapter of African Sex Workers Alliance (ASWA), told Al Jazeera. "We want to be able to practise our profession with pride like every other person. We want an end to name-calling and stigmatisation. We are sex workers and not asawo [a Yoruba derogatory name for prostitutes]." 

“Just as you are proud of your profession, that is how i am proud of mine. Just as you are respected for being a journalist, that is how i want to be respected”

Sex work, said Abraham, is normal work and that there are "sex workers everywhere under one form of disguise or the other". "[The] government should stop criminalising our work," said the woman who is also the president of the Women of Power Initiative (WOPI), a non-governmental organisation established to advance the cause of sex work in Nigeria. 

 (Al Jazeera)