Sex workers on the frontline: An abridged version of the original ICRSE report: ‘The role of sex worker rights groups in providing support during the COVID-19 crisis in Europe’

ABSTRACT

Sex workers in Europe have been dramatically impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic and its associated measures. Ignored by most governments, excluded from social and economic measures put in place to protect other workers, sex workers were left to fend for themselves. The article, an abridged version of a previous report by the ICRSE, illustrates the impact of COVID-19 on sex workers by focusing on how the pandemic affected the socio-economic, health and safety conditions of sex worker communities and how they pro-actively responded to the first waves of the crisis in 2020. Based on data gathered through community research, the authors outline the specific ways in which sex workers living under different sex work legal regimes were hit by the crisis. Crucially, in countries such as France, Sweden and Ireland, where an ‘End Demand’ legislation is in place to supposedly ‘rescue sex workers’, these did not benefit from any state support. The article suggests that sex worker community organisations helped limit the spread of the virus through peer support and peer education, protecting not only sex workers’ health, but society at large and showing similarities to the role of chaperones of public health sex workers had during the AIDS crisis.

KEYWORDS:

• Sex work
• covid-19
• advocacy
• activism
• Europe

1. Introduction

Marginalised and minority communities, such as Black, Indigenous and Other People of Colour (BIPOC), women, (undocumented) migrants, disabled and LGBTIQ people have all faced deepening pre-existing inequalities during the COVID-19 crisis in Europe. The pandemic significantly exacerbated these populations’ social, economic, and political vulnerabilities and exposed the ways in which excluded groups are forced to operate on the economic and social margins, in precarious circumstances, without state protection (ENAR, 2020; Giametta et al., forthcoming; IGLYO, 2020; ILGA Europe, 2020; Millett et al., 2020; NLO, 2020; PICUM, 2020a; TGEU, 2021; UN women, 2020).

People belonging to multiple marginalised communities; living precariously; unemployed or not formally employed were amongst the first to feel the impact of government restrictions and the introduction of strict lockdowns in 2020. The majority of sex workers in Europe belong to one or more of these groups, which have experienced great obstacles obtaining healthcare, accessing basic necessities, and living without fear of abuse and violence ever since the outbreak of the pandemic.

Within weeks, the COVID-19 crisis revealed that sex workers were amongst the populations most disproportionately impacted, due to their social and economic exclusion for working in a highly criminalised sector, and to being often (undocumented) migrants. With the vast majority of sex workers being excluded from state aids, sex worker communities and organisation were left to fend for themselves (Rigotti et al., 2020; ICRSE, 2021a). Based on community research amongst sex workers organisations in Europe, this article will expose the hard work of the sex worker community in supporting its members and advocating for the inclusion of sex workers in support schemes.

1.1. Methodology

In October 2020, in an effort to document the consequences of COVID-19 on sex workers and the response of sex worker led community organisations, the International Committee on the Rights of Sex Workers in Europe (ICRSE) launched a community survey amongst its member organisations, which then resulted in the report upon which this article is based (ICRSE, 2021a). To reach out to a wider audience in April 2021 ICRSE also launched a video project in which 14 sex worker rights activists from 13 European organisations spoke about the main achievements and challenges of their work during the COVID-19 crisis (ICRSE, 2021c).

ICRSE is a sex worker-led community network which comprises 111 organisations led by or working with sex workers in 35 countries in Europe and Central Asia. ICRSE strives to amplify the voices of sex workers in the region and advocates for sex workers to be respected, listened to and included in all policy decisions that affect them directly. ICRSE engages in awareness-raising about the social, political and economic marginalisation of diverse sections of sex workers, including migrant and BIPOC, cis and trans female, male, and non-binary sex workers in Europe and Central Asia. It promotes the human, health and labour rights of all sex workers at community, national and regional level, whilst building alliances with key stake holders, including global sex worker organisations, NGOs and other civil society organisations and different actors within national and EU policy and decision-making.

Over the past few years, ICRSE has maximised its engagement in community research (e.g. ICRSE, 2015, 2016a, 2016b, 2016c, 2020b, 2021a, 2021b). For ICRSE, community consultation and research are key to ensure that the multiple voices within its extremely diverse membership are heard and represented. Generally, community research is fundamental to social change and rights advocacy, as it involves actors directly affected by the topic studied, it identifies key dynamics, exposes the way politics and measures affect the lived experiences of marginalised groups, and produces evidence-based policy recommendations (Minkler, 2005). It also allows for issues to come to the fore which may not be identifiable by non-insider research, which often lacks insight and struggles gaining the trust of highly stigmatised and over-researched groups such as sex workers (Dewey & Zheng, 2013), particularly so during a pandemic.

The ICRSE survey was designed and launched by the authors of this article in October 2020, and it ran through February 2021. It entailed a total of ten questions, three of which asked identifiers about the composition of the organisations and their sites, while the remaining seven were a mix of multiple choice and open questions about the impact of COVID-19 on sex workers; the type of response deployed by the organisations (e.g. organising fundraising, food parcels, providing community and peer to peer support); about their advocacy work; their collaboration with other organisations; and their key demands for improving the conditions of sex workers during the pandemic. It was disseminated to its membership through the ICRSE mailing list. 19 organisations working with and providing support to sex workers or specific sections thereof (e.g. migrant or transgender sex workers) responded, 14 of which were sex worker led. The countries covered were Austria, England, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Scotland, Spain and Switzerland. After the last responses were collected in February 2021, they were compiled, analysed and documented through the official ICRSE report which was published in March 2021 (ICRSE, 2021a).

The present article, based on the aforementioned report, summarises and analyses the main findings of the ICRSE community research. In so doing, it aims at unveiling the scale and role of sex workers communities in supporting and advancing sex workers’ rights, including their health and safety and that of the wider population, during the first waves of the COVID-19 crisis in Europe. Unless otherwise indicated or quoted, all statements and arguments reported in this article are based on the data gathered through the ICRSE community research.

2. The impact of COVID-19 on sex workers in Europe

In Europe, the tragic impact on the lives of sex workers of the COVID-19 outbreak was soon decried by ICRSE and other organisations (ICRSE, 2020a; Platt et al., 2020; Rigotti et al., 2020; UNAIDS & NSWP, 2020). Sex workers in Southern-European countries first hit by the pandemic began to report a huge decline in the number of clients from February 2020 onwards. Most workers had almost abandoned the streets due to the fear of contagion and out of a sense of responsibility for public health upon the introduction of lockdown measures (Rigotti et al., 2020). The economic impact of the first lockdowns fell on a community that was already precarious and engaged in work in an unrecognised and heavily policed sector, as in countries such as Italy or Spain. In Italy, indoor sex work is illegal state-wide, while (majority migrant) street sex workers are subject to heavy controls in the streets, as different municipalities sanction soliciting. In Spain, soliciting on the street is prohibited in Malaga, Sevilla, Madrid, Bilbao, Murcia and Valencia and sex workers are frequently punished by fines. ICRSE organisations from Europe’s two initial hotbeds of COVID-19, reported a rapid loss of income for sex workers: in Italy, large numbers of sex workers were left with no money to pay for food and rent (Rigotti et al., 2020), while in Spain, the number of active advertisers on one of the main advertising sites dropped by 32% after the national lockdown was introduced. Similar numbers were reported later on from other countries, e.g. in Norway where from 9 March to 13 April 2020 the number of online advertisements dropped from 724 to 236 (Pro Sentret, 2020).

As countries followed the example of national lockdowns in Italy and Spain, reports of sex workers losing their income from one day to the next started surfacing. Many sex workers were already precarious due to oppressive legal frameworks being in place, such as the client criminalisation in Ireland and France, which had drastically reduced sex workers’ income prior to the current crisis. In France, migrant street-based sex workers and sex workers of colour were particularly affected by targeted policing before and during the pandemic (Giametta et al., forthcoming). In other countries, such as the UK, the criminalisation of loitering, soliciting and ‘anti-social behaviours’ had already been used against sex workers and contributed to their general precarity and vulnerability (Graham, 2017). Recent research has documented the increase of violence against and deportation of migrant sex workers since the Brexit vote (Vice, 2021).

Crucially, the majority of sex workers in Europe could not access governmental support schemes. Most were not even eligible, but even those who were reported several problems in accessing aid. In the UK, for instance, sex workers spoke of waiting weeks before they got any money; being given rental aids by universal credit which would not cover anything like the actual cost of the rent; not being able to prove their identity; being turned down for arbitrary reasons; difficulty navigating the online system; no money for mobile data to be able to access the system and no WiFi in their accommodation. According to the English Collective of Prostitutes, 24% of sex workers participating in their community survey had applied for universal credit (ECP, forthcoming).

Required to discontinue working due to stay-at-home orders and bans on services that require close contact, not only did sex workers lose their primary livelihood but many also faced difficulties in accessing healthcare. As in the overwhelming majority of European countries transition-related and sexual and reproductive healthcare are not prioritised as vital, during the COVID crisis most cis women and trans sex workers faced the inability to access services in these fields.

In June 2020, ICRSE and the Sex Workers’ Rights Advocacy Network (SWAN) (SWAN & ICRSE, 2020) raised awareness about the way many AIDS/HIV clinics and departments continued working with limited and altered capacities, postponing or moving consultations online or over the phone and organising medicine delivery via post or direct home delivery. Many groups in these networks had reported that ARV treatments were still available for ‘old’ patients, but new ones were not admitted. Furthermore, shortages in HIV medication were also reported while HIV testing was suspended in various contexts (EATG, 2020).

Community-based and outreach groups participating in the ICRSE survey continued their health prevention services to support the large numbers of sex workers who were compelled to break the rules of lockdown and work under increased risks of police violence, blackmail, detention and penalties, as well as potential exposure to the virus. However, in many countries outreach often became impossible. Sex workers were hiding from service providers fearing to be reported to police for violating quarantine regulations or for sharing accommodation with other sex workers to lessen financial burdens – which under most countries’ legal frameworks in Europe can be interpreted as third-party violation (brothel-keeping). Additionally, sex workers’ rights groups reported that reaching sex workers offline proved challenging for them since they lacked human resources and were not able to travel for outreach.

Migrant sex workers remained one of the most vulnerable groups in terms of income loss, as in most European countries they were not entitled to receive any social support. Examples include having a ‘No Recourse to Public Funds’ statement attached to their immigration status in the UK, or not complying with legal sex work-related criteria, such as the compulsory registration as a sex worker in Germany. Experience with extending work visas varied greatly among the countries represented in ICRSE’s survey. In Austria, for instance, many migrants became undocumented due to the slow processing of extension requests, while in Poland visas were automatically extended and allowed many migrant sex workers to stay in the country during 2020.

Migrant sex worker communities also continued facing intersectional disparities in relation to access to healthcare during the pandemic. Communications about COVID-19 developments and protection guidelines in most countries covered by the ICRSE survey ignored migrant communities’ languages. Furthermore, undocumented migrant sex workers experienced serious barriers to accessing non-emergency care, fearing or actually risking being denounced to immigration authorities or receiving large bills they could not pay as a result of accessing services. Only two countries, Italy and Portugal, rolled out regularisation measures (PICUM, 2020b) that would grant time-limited residence authorisations for specific groups of migrants with associated access to healthcare. However, these regulations did not mention sex workers, given that they do not enjoy worker status in these countries.

Access to justice for sex workers, particularly for (undocumented) migrants, has long been compromised. Sex workers are afraid of the police and immigration authorities and do not report cases of abuse and violence to them due to the well-founded fear that they will either receive no support, or even get fined, detained, or deported. The lack of access to support and justice in cases of victimisation created an especially vulnerable situation during the pandemic: for many sex workers, economic emergencies and the decrease in the number of clients resulted in a heightened risk of taking on abusive clients and engaging in risky behaviours, such as condomless sex, while access to justice was compromised further by working in breach of restriction measures.

Coronavirus restrictions and ‘lockdown laws’ have been imposed in a discriminatory way, targeting sex workers in many countries. In the UK for instance, ICRSE members reported how lockdown regulations particularly targeted BIPOC and migrant women, with some receiving ‘on the spot fines’, others being harassed for working on the street or experiencing their premises raided. A similar pattern was identified by recent research amongst migrant sex workers, and particularly trans BIPOC in France (Giametta et al., forthcoming).

In Norway, the police used pandemic regulations to unfairly arrest, detain, heavily fine and deport foreign sex workers, using the National Act relating to the control of communicable diseases as a pretext for harassment and deportation of sex workers. Police raided apartments and used coercive measures such as confiscating mobile phones to find details that they can use against sex workers. In addition to deportations and detainment, sex workers were fined 19,000 NOK (1,845 EUR) for allegedly breaking quarantine and infection rules. There was no legal basis for the police behaviour in the Act relating to the control of communicable diseases, as the sex workers would have needed to be infected with a disease and infect others on purpose, or through gross negligence (PION, 2021).

Violence against sex workers by non-state parties did not stop when lockdown measures did. As perpetrators knew that sex workers violated the ban on contact services, in some countries such as the UK and Norway, they specifically targeted sex workers. In Norway, sex workers provided accounts of an increase in intoxicated clients, clients who refused to pay or asked for non-payment referring to the fact that selling sex is prohibited, clients who refused to use a condom, bargained over price or demanded services that the seller did not offer, as per the report of Pro Sentret, an Oslo-based service provider (Pro Sentret, 2020). Police were furthermore publicly calling sex workers ‘contagion bombs’ on Norwegian TV, which also contributed to sex workers having very low trust towards law enforcement authorities.

Survey respondents in Italy, Poland, France, Germany, and the UK also reported heightened police surveillance and raids of workplaces. In Italy, sex workers from all around the country experienced a high level of police surveillance since the introduction of lockdowns: police were escorting them home from the street where they were working and calling them using their online advertisements, which caused huge distress amongst the community, especially amongst (undocumented) migrants. Further criminalisation also occurred in Italy. For instance, the municipality of Rimini introduced a new ordinance to prohibit prostitution, and between 25 May and 31 October 2020, 221 fines were handed out (Altarimini, 2021). In Poland, police fined workplaces for being venues of illegal gatherings and sent sex workers living in the brothels ‘home’. Some sex workers were also fined for working on the street (Dziuban et al., 2021). In France, several media outlets reported on cases of migrant sex workers being targeted by the police with headlines such as ‘prostitutes infected by Coronavirus arrested, contaminates 13 clients’ without any evidence of virological status of the individual, spreading fear and disinformation (France Bleu, 2020). In Germany, while fines for sex workers in the 1st wave lessened later on, police continued to punish clients during raids. In the UK, sex workers, especially women of colour and migrant sex workers faced fines and police raids at their workplaces.

3. Community-based support by sex worker organisations

Since the onset of the pandemic, ICRSE organisations signalled a surge of contacts to their collectives as sex workers had found themselves in an unprecedented situation, with an often complete lack of income. In the UK, the English Collective of Prostitutes reported that between March and the end of September 2020, the numbers of women contacting them rose by approximately 30%. Similarly, a charity supporting female sex workers in a Cardiff, UK saw a 69% rise in women asking coming to them for their support. Many of them had been working throughout the pandemic out of economic necessity (Dunstan, 2020).

Sex worker groups across Europe, although mostly operating on shoestring budgets and relying on volunteers, stepped up to provide immediate support to those who lost their income from the very beginning of the pandemic. Most organisations organised fundraisings to help those most in need who were not reached by other humanitarian organisations or service providers (e.g. SWARM, 2020). Sex workers did not give out cash payments in all cases. Some distributed food vouchers, food parcels, gift cards, depending on the organisation’s decision and the community’s immediate needs.

Direct provision of financial aid was complemented by several other measures, such as multilingual translation of COVID guidelines or online workshops about working on the Internet, mental health and wellbeing and other topics (e.g. in Ireland and in Germany). Various organisations also built on the initial contacts with sex workers due to COVID-19, following up and offering the support of peer outreach workers on an individual basis. Sex worker organisations in Romania, Poland, France and Spain also provided support by negotiating with landlords to prevent evictions and providing emergency accommodation. In Italy and Sweden, ICRSE member organisations supported sex workers arranging for their return journey to their country of origin and in Italy also referring sex workers to appropriate services in case of violence and trafficking. In the UK, the English Collective of Prostitutes provided legal aid to those fined during the lockdown, while in Romania and Ireland sex work organisations helped sex workers obtain legal documentation, state benefits and health insurance.

In order to efficiently reach sex workers across the country, many organisations established new working relations with support organisations. For instance, in Italy, local sex worker groups cooperated with local NGOs and members of the National Anti-Trafficking Platform in cities with no local activists to distribute financial aid to sex workers, while activists in Belgium worked with social support mechanisms, such as food banks and City Councils. In Ireland, migrant sex workers with undocumented status or trafficking experience were directed to the Migrant Rights Centre or to anti-trafficking organisations.

In France, several organisations providing sex workers with assistance worked together to pool and share resources, such as personal protective equipment (PPE) and also cooperated with other outreach organisations to organise access to HIV testing and care services. Sex worker activists in Spain also engaged in new partnerships with organisations to deliver food parcels and vouchers to sex workers, such as OXFAM, Intermon, the Spanish Red Cross, and the Ajuntament de Barcelona (the Municipality of Barcelona), amongst others.

3.1. Advocacy around sex workers’ rights and inclusion in support schemes

Besides the provision of direct support to sex workers, sex worker rights groups also engaged in amplifying in the public discourse the impact of COVID-19 on their communities. As a result, several alliances were made in 2020 with the media and several aligned human rights and social justice movements, which continued into 2021. Furthermore, state institutions in some countries acknowledged the importance of supporting community-based groups and considering their demands. However, in other contexts, sex worker groups’ exclusion from policymaking became even more visible by including neo-abolitionist, anti-sex work groups in state support schemes instead of community-led collectives, as happened in Scotland.

A positive example is the advocacy efforts for decriminalisation and their consideration in policymaking in Belgium. During the crisis, the Belgian sex worker organisation UTSOPI joined a local alliance for improving the situation of sex workers. Platform Schaerbeek included UTSOPI employees, different branches of the police, anti-trafficking organisations and policymakers, who regularly informed each other on the situation of sex workers in North District 2 in Brussels. This cooperation enabled setting up a food distribution programme and receiving funding from the municipality of Schaerbeek. UTSOPI also decided to create a federal platform of various actors working towards the improvement of the situation for sex workers, irrespective of their position on sex work and prostitution. This platform was mandated during the first lockdown with the task of establishing the protocol to restarting sex work. As a result of these collaborations, UTSOPI managed to initiate conversations on the federal level about sex work decriminalisation (The Brussels Times, 2021).

An example of further exclusion of sex workers from policymaking occurred instead in Scotland, where the government addressed sex workers’ desperate situations by announcing a £60,000 fund. While Umbrella Lane, a sex worker-led group was excluded from the scheme, the Encompass Network, which includes nine organisations involved in sex worker support yet defines prostitution as violence against women and campaigns for client criminalisation, was included in the funding. Later on in September 2020, the Scottish Government opened up the ‘Equally Safe’ consultation to the public, which closed on 10 December 2020. It was aimed at ‘challenging men’s demand for prostitution, working to reduce the harms associated with prostitution and helping women to exit’. This client-criminalisation approach indicated an ideological alignment with the Swedish Model for regulating sex work, which has had particularly harmful consequences for sex workers in Sweden (Levy, 2014; Vuolajärvi, 2019), France (Giametta et al., forthcoming; Mai et al., 2021) and Ireland (Ryan & McGarry, 2021). Life for sex workers in Ireland under the Swedish model of client criminalisation. and Sweden. Activists of Umbrella Lane then launched a counter-campaign with the hashtag ‘notequalnotsafe’.

The here outlined work of sex worker rights organisations in Europe in response to the COVID-19 proves once again how sex workers are central actors in supporting maintaining and promoting public health, within and beyond their own communities. Even when excluded by state support and counting on scarce stable funding, their work during the COVID-19 crisis has made a difference in the lives of many, drawing a parallel with the way sex workers have been and still are central to the fight against HIV and within the promotion of sexual health.

4. Recommendations and conclusions

As sex workers live on the economic margins, they have so far rarely benefitted from the pandemic response and recovery plans that several countries have rolled out. At the same time, the COVID-19 crisis has seen more people, particularly women, engaging in sex work for the first time (Oppenheim, 2021). Even when confinement periods will end, the economic crisis will not. As evidenced by the financial crisis of 2008, more people are likely to turn to sex work to make a livelihood in the months and years to come, which will result in lower rates, increased vulnerability, and potentially increased exploitation.

Based on the finding of the ICRSE community research and other evidence outlined in this article, we urge European governments to fund further research and implement the following policy, social and economic measures in order to protect sex workers, along with other informal workers and marginalised groups, from the detrimental effects of the current crisis.

• Countries need to move towards recognising sex work as work and the full decriminalisation of sex work. They should facilitate a comprehensive inquiry that assesses the living and working conditions and human rights of sex workers. The consequences of current legislations should be researched with the active involvement of sex workers and their organisations and with a view to the most marginalised sex workers, such as (undocumented) migrants, single parents, LGBTIQ, people of colour, and disabled workers.

• Community-led organisations that are run by sex workers, providing direct support to the most affected, need to be included in decision-making and the distribution of emergency relief and COVID-19 social assistance recovery measures.

• Increased funding must be allocated to deal with the surge of clients at anti-violence organisations and be also distributed to those community-led organisations that are often left out of the response to gender-based violence, including initiatives by sex worker, LGBTIQ, and (undocumented) migrant communities.

• Social assistance should be introduced to cover unpaid or low-paid caregivers and the informal workforce, including sex workers, regardless of their migration status. Basic social protections should be extended to caregivers and informal workers as well. Direct support, such as health insurance, paid sick and maternity leave, pensions and unemployment benefits need to reach beyond formal employment and be accessible to people in all spheres of work.

• Many sex workers are at risk of becoming homeless, having lost their primary source of income and due to the closure of workplaces, where many of them used to reside. A moratorium on evictions should be introduced and those who struggle with rent or mortgage payments should be supported, while emergency housing options must be allocated to those in urgent need, with a special view to those at risk of abuse or violence in their residence.

• Policing should not single out vulnerable populations, such as homeless people, sex workers, LGBTIQ people, migrants or people of colour, and people who use drugs and should not punish them for violating quarantine regulations. Police enforcement of confinement and isolation measures should not be used for identity and residence status checks. Instead, police should refer people to essential services and distribute protection equipment, such as sanitisers and masks.

• All raids, arrests, prosecutions, and deportations must be immediately suspended and criminal records for prostitution-related offenses should be erased.

• Temporary residence and work permits for individuals need to be automatically extended or issued in light of the current circumstances, to stop people from becoming undocumented or being stuck with uncertain status due to the pandemic. Ways for undocumented migrants to regularise their status on various grounds should also be supported in the longer-term and developed and implemented in partnership with migrant community and support organisations. Pathways for migration for decent work, family reunification, study and protection need to be established, which promote the rights of migrants and their families.

• States should provide non-citizens who are victims of violence, exploitation, abuse and/or trafficking with access to secure and unconditional residence permits that are not dependent on assisting with the prosecution of their perpetrators and lead to more stable status after a reasonable period of regular residence.

• Sexual and reproductive health care, HIV services, and transition-related care need to be maintained and reorganised, with more resources allocated to community-based organisations.

The evidence gathered through this community research has highlighted the commitment and efforts of sex worker and community organisations to uphold and support the health and livelihood of sex workers during the pandemic. In so doing, sex worker organisations have helped tamper the dire consequences of governments’ failures in protecting most marginalised sections of the public during a pandemic, which potentially affects the population as a whole. Since the original ICRSE report was first published, some steps forward have been made, but our recommendations remain as relevant as before. We wish to conclude by insisting that supporting the rights, health and social well-being of sex workers and other marginalised communities is key to protecting the public health of the wider population.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.