A record of the work
Exhibitions
Anya Dahan Speaks at African Sex Workers Alliance Continental Webinar Date: July 10, 2023
ASWA Panelist — Anti-Rights Movement & Sex Workers' Health Role: Panelist, representing Platform Layalat (Morocco) Summary: Anya Dahan joined a continental-level webinar hosted by the African Sex Workers Alliance (ASWA), addressing the emergence of anti-rights movements and their impact on sex workers' safety and health, alongside speakers from Kelin, VIIV Healthcare UK, and the Global Fund.
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Platform Layalat Announces Partnership with Women4GlobalFund to Advance Gender-Transformative Advocacy
Marrakech, Morocco — May 11, 2023 Anya Dahan, Coordinator of Platform Layalat, today announced a formal partnership agreement with Women4GlobalFund (W4GF), coordinated by the International Council of AIDS Service Organizations (ICASO), to implement the project "Leading Women's Engagement with the Global Fund: Translating Women's Needs into Gender-Transformative Quality Interventions." The partnership supports women, adolescents, and girls in Morocco in engaging meaningfully with Global Fund national processes during the 2023–2025 Allocation Cycle. Through the collaboration, Platform Layalat will lead advocacy training, capacity-building sessions, and the development of gender-transformative funding proposals addressing HIV, tuberculosis, and malaria outcomes — while working to expand access to and understanding of the Global Fund's 2023–2028 Strategy among communities not currently represented in these processes. "This partnership means women in Morocco who have been left out of these conversations finally have a seat at the table," said Anya Dahan, Coordinator of Platform Layalat. "Our work together will build the confidence and tools these women need to shape national decisions that directly affect their communities." The agreement was signed on May 10–11, 2023, by Anya Dahan on behalf of Platform Layalat in Marrakech, Morocco, and by Ángela León Cáceres, W4GF Global Coordinator, in Quito, Ecuador. The partnership runs through July 2023. About Platform Layalat Platform Layalat is a Morocco-based advocacy platform working to advance the rights and inclusion of women and marginalized communities. Media Contact studio@anyadahan.blog
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Platform Layalat and Women4GlobalFund Publish Technical Brief on Transgender Women's Rights and Health in Morocco's Global Fund Programming
Role: Anya Dahan, Founder/Leader, Platform Layalat Summary: On May 12, 2023, Platform Layalat — a Morocco-based advocacy network for sex workers' rights, with a particular focus on transgender women sex workers, led by Anya Dahan — published a technical brief in partnership with Women4GlobalFund (W4GF), a global network of gender equality advocates spanning 62 countries. The brief, "Leading Trans Women's Engagement with the Global Fund: Translating Women's Needs into Gender-Transformative Quality Interventions," outlines the compounding challenges facing transgender women in Morocco: stigma and discrimination, poverty and limited employment access, criminalization of sex work, and the absence of legal gender recognition. It includes firsthand testimony documenting police mistreatment of transgender sex workers, and draws on Platform Layalat's standing as a member of the Global Network of Sex Work Projects (NSWP) and founding member of Transgender Red Umbrella. The brief calls for a set of concrete reforms: legal protection for transgender women, improved access to education and employment, healthcare services tailored to transgender-specific needs (including HIV/TB prevention and care, hormone therapy, and mental health support), sensitivity training for healthcare and law enforcement personnel, and access to legal aid. It further argues that transgender women must be directly included in Global Fund–related decision-making spaces in Morocco, including Country Coordinating Mechanism (CCM) discussions, national health dialogues, and the review of National Strategic Plans with the Ministry of Health. The brief closes with the call: "Let's work together to ensure that transwomen in Morocco are included in discussions and decisions around healthcare policy and funding. #TransVisibility #InclusionMatters."
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بيان مقاطعة انتخابات 23 شتنبر بالمغرب: حين تصبح حقوق مجتمع الميم عين ثمن الاستقرار السياسي
بيان مقاطعة انتخابات 23 شتنبر بالمغرب: حين تصبح حقوق مجتمع الميم عين ثمن الاستقرار السياسي بينما تتوالى التحليلات عن "أزمة الثقة" المتصاعدة في المغرب قبيل انتخابات 23 شتنبر، هناك جانب يغيب باستمرار عن النقاش الرسمي والإعلامي: التراكم الممنهج للمواقف المعادية لمجتمع الميم عين، واستمرار التنكيل بحقوقهم المشروعة، تحت حكومة ادّعت لعقد كامل تقريبًا أنها حداثية وتقدمية. هذه ليست مفارقة عابرة، بل جوهر المهزلة: حكومة تتغنى بخطاب "الانفتاح" و"التقدمية" في المحافل الدولية، بينما تترك الفصل 489 من القانون الجنائي (تجريم "المثلية") قائمًا بلا مساءلة حقيقية، وتصمت — أو تتواطأ ضمنيًا — أمام حملات التحريض الرقمي، والابتزاز، والملاحقة الأمنية لأفراد المجتمع، وتُقصي قضاياهم كليًا من أي برنامج انتخابي جاد. إن هذه المهزلة الديمقراطية لا تُقصي فقط مجتمع الميم عين من النقاش العام، بل تُنكر على الأفراد حقهم في التعريف بأنفسهم، وفي العلاج الطبي الآمن. إن العبور الهرموني تحت رعاية طبية ليس رفاهية، بل قضية حياة أو موت؛ غياب الخدمة الصحية يعني حرمانًا مباشرًا من الحق في الحياة، ومن الحق في الكرامة الجسدية والنفسية. وضعي كلاجئة يزيد من هشاشتي: أُحرم من الحماية القانونية، ومن الخدمات الصحية الأساسية، ومن الحق في أن أُعامل كمواطنة كاملة الحقوق. هذه ليست مجرد انتهاكات فردية، بل سياسة ممنهجة تُحوّل وجودي ذاته إلى موضوع تفاوض سياسي، بدل أن يكون حقًا إنسانيًا غير قابل للمساومة. حين تضعف ثقة الشباب بالمؤسسات، كما توثقه استطلاعات Afrobarometer ووسائل إعلام دولية، فإن الأقليات الجندرية والجنسية هي أول من يدفع الثمن: تصبح قضاياهم كبش فداء سهل، وموضوعًا يُستدعى للتشتيت عن الفشل الاقتصادي والفساد المؤسساتي الحقيقي — بدل أن تكون حقوقًا مشروعة تستحق حماية الدولة. لذلك، فإن مقاطعة هذه الانتخابات ليست انسحابًا سلبيًا، بل فعل مقاومة: رفضٌ للتصويت على صناديق تُشرعن الإقصاء، وإعلانٌ بأن الديمقراطية لا تُختزل في أوراق الاقتراع، بل في حماية الحق في الحياة، والحق في العلاج، والحق في التعريف، والحق في الكرامة لكل مواطن ومواطنة بلا استثناء. انيا دحان (ع.ج) رئيسة منظمة المظلة الحمراء للعابراتين (جمعية نوميديا، حي الازدهار مراكش) 18 سبتمبر 2026
Anya Dahan Granted Refugee Status Following Persecution in Morocco
<p>Anya Dahan has been granted refugee status after fleeing systematic persecution in Morocco tied to her gender identity and her public advocacy for transgender women's rights — closing a case first filed in Istanbul in September 2025.</p>
Transgender Red Umbrella Partners with GATE for Global Trans Conference 2024
Transgender Red Umbrella, led by CEO Anya Dahan, partnered with Global Action for Trans Equality (GATE) as part of the "Unite! Advocate! Thrive!" Global Trans Conference 2024 in Munich — a gathering of up to 200 trans and gender diverse activists and donors held ahead of AIDS 2024. The conference developed a multi-year action plan across Health, Human Rights, and Movement Building to strengthen the global trans and gender-diverse movement's response to anti-gender opposition.
View →Anya Dahan Files for International Protection, Citing Systematic Persecution in Morocco
<p>On September 8, 2025, Anya Dahan formally filed a request for international protection and refugee recognition, citing years of systematic legal, social, and health-related persecution in Morocco tied to her gender identity as a transgender woman and her public advocacy for transgender women's and sex workers' rights.</p> <p>Anya Dahan was born in Akdz, in Morocco's Zagora Province, and raised in a conservative environment that left no space for a gender identity outside the one assigned to her at birth. As a teenager, she recognized she did not identify with the identity imposed on her, but had no language or safety to express it.</p> <p>In 2012, she became involved in Morocco's "Tamarod" movement, participating in demonstrations and writing political commentary critical of religious violence and moral authoritarianism. When the movement collapsed, she withdrew from formal political activity — but continued to face a harsher reality: social rejection rooted in her gender identity.</p> <p>Over the following years, she moved between several Moroccan cities — Agadir, Casablanca, Nador, Marrakech, and Zagora — encountering job loss, sexual harassment, professional discrimination, and social stigma in each. In Nador, working as a street vendor, she described having her goods repeatedly confiscated and being held without charge by authorities, with no legal path to recover what was seized.</p> <p>In interviews with regional outlets, Dahan spoke about the institutional violence of being required to carry identification documents reflecting a name and gender she did not identify with, and the absence of any legal framework accounting for transgender people's safety in housing or employment. In Marrakech, she survived an attempted assault but did not report it to police, fearing her identity would be used to criminalize her rather than protect her — a fear grounded in Moroccan law, which criminalizes same-sex relations and can hold assault survivors responsible for "public indecency."</p> <p>During the COVID-19 pandemic, isolation deepened alongside social stigma and movement restrictions. She found support through an HIV/AIDS advocacy association, receiving free testing, psychological counseling, and legal support — later joining the organization as a community counselor in April 2021. That work led her to found Platform Layalat, advocating for transgender women and sex workers, with a focus on sexual and reproductive health.</p> <p>Her advocacy grew increasingly public and international: a formal partnership with Women4GlobalFund in May 2023, a technical brief addressing transgender exclusion from Morocco's national HIV dialogue, direct advocacy to Morocco's Country Coordinating Mechanism (CCM), and a speaking role at the Global South Women's Forum in October 2023, where she spoke about rejection by her family and symbolic violence against transgender people in border regions.</p> <p>In 2024, she founded an organization publicly known as Transgender Red Umbrella. In 2025, a formal complaint was filed against her with Moroccan authorities accusing her of "promoting homosexuality" and describing her activism as contrary to religious and national values. She was summoned four times to local administrative authorities in Marrakech, informed verbally that she was under surveillance, and warned that continued contact with international organizations could lead to her arrest — while the underlying investigation remained undisclosed to her.</p> <p>Citing an absence of legal protection, healthcare access, or safety guarantees in Morocco, and facing direct risk of arrest, prosecution, or violence tied to her identity and activism, Dahan filed her request for international protection in Istanbul on September 8, 2025, invoking the 1951 Refugee Convention and its 1967 Protocol.</p>
Anya Dahan and Platform Layalat Join 1,259 Organizations Urging UN to Renew SOGI Mandate
<p>Date: 2025 (HRC59 session, vote in July 2025)</p> <p><a href="https://gate.ngo/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/Global-CSO-Renew-IE-SOGI-Statement.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Read the full statement and list of signatories (PDF)</a></p> <p>Summary:</p> <p>Anya Dahan, alongside Platform Layalat, joined 1,259 civil society organizations from 157 countries and territories in a global statement urging the UN Human Rights Council to renew the mandate of the Independent Expert on Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity (IE SOGI). The coalition statement, coordinated by ILGA World, cited over 171 documented communications and 10 country visits carried out under the mandate since its creation in 2016, and warned of a growing global anti-gender movement threatening hard-won protections.</p>
View →Anya Dahan Speaks at GATE Panel: Tackling Anti-Gender Attacks — Learning from African Activists
Role: Speaker, Executive Director of TGRU – Transgender Red Umbrella Summary: Anya Dahan, founder and Executive Director of TGRU – Transgender Red Umbrella, joined a GATE-hosted panel on tackling anti-gender attacks, sharing lessons learned from advocacy work protecting transgender women sex workers in Morocco and the wider MENA region. She spoke alongside Barbra Wangare (EATHAN, Kenya) and Théo Dongmo (RITAC, Cameroon), addressing strategies African and MENA activists use to anticipate, prevent, and respond to anti-gender and anti-rights actors. Body (longer version): On June 26, 2024, Anya Dahan joined a GATE (Global Action for Trans Equality) online panel, "Tackling Anti-Gender Attacks: Learning from African Activists," representing TGRU – Transgender Red Umbrella, the regional network of trans and gender diverse sex workers she founded in the MENA region. The session brought together regional leaders — Barbra Wangare, Executive Director of EATHAN (East Africa Trans Health & Advocacy Network), and Théo Dongmo, Coordinator of RITAC (Réseau Indépendant des Trans* d'Afrique Centrale) — to share successes and challenges in confronting anti-gender and anti-rights movements across their respective contexts. As Executive Director of TGRU, Dahan spoke to her ongoing advocacy for transgender women sex workers in Morocco, contributing to a broader discussion aimed at fostering South-South and South-East collaboration among trans-led organizations navigating hostile political environments.
View →Anya Dahan Joins "Passing Through: Cisheteronormativity at the Border" Panel at Global South Women's Forum
Role: Panelist, alongside Farah Abdi, Natasha Jiménez, and Kelly Summary: As part of IWRAW Asia Pacific's Global South Women's Forum 2023 ("Border CTRL"), Anya Dahan spoke on the dual threats border regimes and cisheteronormative bureaucracies pose to LGBTIQ+ Global South communities.
View →Platform Layalat Launches Petition for Transgender Women's Rights in Morocco
Platform Layalat — Transgender Rights Petition Campaign Summary: In partnership with All Out, Anya Dahan led a petition campaign calling for the legal recognition of transgender women's rights in Morocco.
View →Anya Dahan Advocates for Transgender Population at Morocco's CCM Country Dialogue for HIV/TB Global Fund Grant
Role: Speaker/participant representing transgender population, CCM General Assembly (Country Coordinating Mechanism, Morocco) Summary: On May 22, 2023, Anya Dahan took part in Morocco's Country Coordinating Mechanism (CCM) General Assembly in Rabat, a country dialogue session convened to validate priority interventions for the nation's 2024–2026 Global Fund financing request — a joint application covering HIV, tuberculosis, and resilient and sustainable health systems, backed by an allocation of over €21 million. Speaking during the discussion segment, Dahan insisted on the engagement of the transgender population throughout the process, recommending that the specific health needs of transgender people be formally recognized and that transgender people be explicitly included among the CCM's designated key populations. She further called for the development of transgender-specific indicators and for a transgender representative to hold a seat on the CCM, alongside efforts to reduce stigma and discrimination and to advance transgender women's rights and access to healthcare. In response, CCM officials acknowledged the need for further research to establish baseline data on Morocco's transgender population, noting that upcoming respondent-driven sampling (RDS) studies would help establish population size, prevalence, and behavioral indicators to eventually support such recommendations.
View →Anya Dahan Speaks to Raseef22 on Legal Erasure of Transgender Women in Morocco / أنيا دحان تتحدث لرصيف22 عن الإقصاء القانوني للنساء العابرات جنسياً في المغرب
<h3>English</h3> <p>On March 3, 2023, feminist activist Anya Dahan, founder of Platform Layalat for Gender Equality, spoke to Raseef22 as part of "Taif22," a series produced in partnership with Outright International documenting the experiences of LGBTQ+ communities across the Middle East and North Africa.</p> <p>In the interview, part of a broader report on the legal exclusion facing LGBTQ+ organizations in Morocco, Dahan addressed the specific institutional violence faced by transgender women: being required to carry national identity documents listing a male name and gender. She described this as a direct violation of transgender people's civil rights, one that compounds further for low-income transgender women who face housing and employment barriers, and are often forced into shared housing with men due to the absence of legal gender recognition — exposing them to harassment and assault.</p> <p>Dahan also addressed the healthcare gap facing transgender women in Morocco, noting the absence of any gender-affirming care protocol within the national health system, and called on the Ministry of Health to provide safe access to hormone therapy. She argued that the lack of both legal recognition and medical access constitutes a clear violation of the right to health, and of civil rights the constitution is meant to guarantee to all citizens.</p> <p>She concluded by calling on the Moroccan state to bring its laws and policies into line with the spirit of its constitution, arguing that continued exclusion of transgender women reflects a broader failure to meet Morocco's international commitments — including under CEDAW — to combat discrimination against women and girls.</p> <h3>العربية</h3> <p>في 3 مارس 2023، تحدثت الناشطة النسوية أنيا دحان، مؤسسة منصة "لعيالات للمساواة الجندرية"، إلى موقع رصيف22 ضمن سلسلة "طيف22"، وهو مشروع بالتعاون مع منظمة Outright International يوثّق تجارب مجتمع الميم-عين في منطقة الشرق الأوسط وشمال أفريقيا.</p> <p>تناول الحوار، ضمن تقرير أوسع حول الإقصاء القانوني الذي تواجهه الجمعيات المدافعة عن حقوق مجتمع الميم-عين في المغرب، العنف المؤسساتي الذي تعيشه النساء العابرات جنسياً بسبب إجبارهن على حمل بطاقة تعريف وطنية باسم وجنس ذكوريين. واعتبرت دحان أن هذا يشكل انتهاكاً مباشراً للحقوق المدنية، يتفاقم أكثر بالنسبة للنساء العابرات جنسياً ذوات الدخل المحدود، اللواتي يواجهن صعوبات في السكن والعمل، ويضطررن أحياناً للسكن المشترك مع رجال بسبب غياب الاعتراف القانوني بهويتهن الجندرية، مما يعرّضهن للتحرش والاعتداء.</p> <p>كما تطرقت دحان إلى الفجوة الصحية التي تعانيها النساء العابرات جنسياً في المغرب، مشيرة إلى غياب أي بروتوكول رعاية صحية متعلق بتأكيد الهوية الجندرية ضمن المنظومة الصحية الوطنية، ودعت وزارة الصحة إلى توفير عبور هرموني آمن. واعتبرت أن غياب الاعتراف القانوني والرعاية الطبية معاً يشكل انتهاكاً صريحاً للحق في الصحة، وللحقوق المدنية التي يُفترض أن يكفلها الدستور لجميع المواطنين.</p> <p>واختتمت بدعوة الدولة المغربية إلى مواءمة قوانينها وسياساتها مع روح الدستور، معتبرة أن استمرار إقصاء النساء العابرات جنسياً يعكس تقصيراً أوسع في الوفاء بالتزامات المغرب الدولية، بما في ذلك اتفاقية سيداو (CEDAW)، في مجال مكافحة التمييز ضد النساء والفتيات.</p> <p><a href="https://raseef22.net/article/1092097-الهوموفوبيا-تلاحق-جمعيات-مجتمع-الميمعين-في-المغرب" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Read the full article on Raseef22 / اقرأ المقال كاملاً على رصيف22</a></p>
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