This Strategic period, ESWA is specifically dedicated to bringing disabled sex workers to the center of our movement. This includes not only include highlighting the specific barriers to rights and participation that disabled sex workers experience, but also identifying the enabling factors that doing sex work can provide to disabled, neurodivergent and chronically ill workers. 

We also recognise that in the current political climate in Europe and Central Asia, migrant and undocumented sex workers face compounded barriers to healthcare, where hostile legal frameworks, immigration enforcement, and fear of deportation create conditions of exclusion and insecurity. No one should have to choose between accessing essential healthcare and protecting their safety, family, or right to remain in the country where they live. ESWA will advocate for clear firewalls between healthcare and immigration authorities, fight for rights-based approaches that ensure access to care regardless of migration status and challenge the structural conditions that leave communities behind. 

We will continue to promote sex worker leadership in health responses, recognising that effective healthcare is built with communities, not simply delivered to them. Community-led organisations have long created trusted pathways to care, support, and information for those excluded from institutional systems. ESWA will advocate for the meaningful inclusion of sex workers in the design, delivery, and evaluation of health services, while challenging the exclusion of sex workers from knowledge production, decision-making, and health leadership. 

At the same time, ESWA recognises that community-led responses are sustained through the (often unpaid) labour, care, and resilience of sex worker activists, peer workers, and advocates. Those working closest to communities often carry the emotional weight of the structural violence experienced by sex workers, creating a significant risk of burnout and vicarious trauma. During this strategic period, ESWA is committed to strengthening and supporting community-led service providers through investment in resilience, trauma-informed approaches, peer support, and sustainable models of care.

ESWA is currently working to strengthen access to rights-based health, HIV prevention, and support services for sex workers across Europe. We are part of the European PrEP Alliance, collaborating with researchers, health providers, and community organisations to improve access to PrEP and sexual health services for mobile sex workers and others facing barriers within healthcare systems. Through our European survey, we are documenting the experiences of sex workers who travel, identifying challenges in accessing health services, and advocating for stigma-free, inclusive healthcare across Europe.

Beyond HIV and sexual health advocacy, ESWA is expanding its work to improve the quality of support available to sex workers by training health and social care professionals, including therapists, to provide informed, non-judgmental, and sex worker-centred care. Building on our sex worker therapist training programme, we aim to expand capacity among professionals and create stronger networks of providers who understand the specific realities and needs of sex workers.

ESWA also continues to invest in community leadership and advocacy through initiatives such as the Spark Fellowship, which supports emerging sex worker advocates and strengthens the next generation of community leaders. Following the success of the first programme, we plan to run the fellowship again soon.

We work closely with partners including IPPF, HIV Outcomes, EATG, TGEU, and the SexSense network, while developing new partnerships to advance sex workers’ rights, health equity, and community-led approaches throughout Europe.

Over the past strategic period, we strengthened our role a leading advocate for sex workers' right to health by advancing community-led, rights-based approaches to healthcare across Europe and Central Asia. We have built new partnerships with sexual and reproductive health providers, strengthened collaboration with HIV and public health networks, and ensured that sex workers' voices are represented in clinical, policy, and research spaces.

Through community-led research, including Two Pairs of Gloves and UnPrEPared, ESWA documented the structural barriers sex workers face in accessing healthcare, while demonstrating the critical role of peer-led organisations in improving linkage to care and health outcomes. We use the knowledge obtained through our research to strengthen community members during our capacity building activities, such as the Red Umbrella Academy and E-mpower Fellowship.

Community Response to End Inequalities - CORE

Sex Work Inclusive Policies and Programmes in Europe - SWIPE

Red Umbrella Academy 2 - RUA2

Sex Work Therapist Training - SWTT

Community Response to End Inequalities - CORE

CORE, Community Response to End Inequalities is a 2,8 million euros 4-year project funded by EU4Health. Led by Aids Action Europe, the CORE project consortium comprises 24 Beneficiaries and 1 Affiliated Entity, consisting of a mix of regional networks, national and local community-based and community-led organisations, and academic institutions. The Beneficiaries and the Affiliated Entity are from 16 different EU Member States.

The aim of the CORE project is to reduce health inequalities by promoting, strengthening and integrating community responses, especially for “hard to reach” populations through mainstream prevention and healthcare services. 

To strengthen community responses, CORE will use capacity building, networking, and the exchange of good practices and innovative approaches, including data monitoring and reporting. To ensure ownership and stakeholders’ interest in implementing and sustaining these interventions, it will proactively reach out and engage relevant stakeholders. To promote integration of these approaches into disease prevention and health promotion strategies and systems, it will address legal, policy, and structural issues.

ESWA is the co-lead on two work packages: work package 4 on capacity building and work package 6, Stakeholder Engagement and Sustainability.

More information about the CORE project here.

Sex Work Inclusive Policies and Programmes in Europe - SWIPE

SWIPE, Sex Workers Inclusive Policies and Programmes in Europe, is a programme funded by Viiv. The aim of the Sex Workers Inclusive Policies and Programmes in Europe (SWIPE) project is to improve sex workers’ access to health and HIV services by building the capacities of sex workers and in particular, trans and MSM sex workers, improving knowledge available about stigma and discrimination faced by sex workers and strengthening networks of key stakeholders to better include sex workers in service provision, data collection and policy making.

The programme is divided into 3 workstreams:

• Capacity Building

ESWA will organise 2 trainings for trans and for MSM sex workers. Whilst there is an overlap between trans and MSM communities (i.e. trans masculine sex workers, non-binary sex workers), these trainings will be an opportunity for community and movement building by focusing on specific issues faced by each community.

30 trans and MSM sex workers will be able to join the training sessions. In line with ESWA's overarching priority on racial justice and migrant rights, racialised and migrant LGBT sex workers will also be prioritised.

The training will focus on HIV, sex work and peer-based interventions for trans and MSM sex workers. The training will build the capacities and empower trans and MSM sex workers by increasing their knowledge of HIV testing, prevention and treatment.

Topics of the training will include:

• Introduction to HIV: HIV life cycle, transmission, treatment options, history of HIV; 
• HIV combination prevention; 
• Access to PrEP;
• Realities of Sex Work in Europe; 
• Needs and barriers of different groups of sex workers with regard to access to HIV services; 
• specific vulnerabilities: stigma and discrimination, criminalization; 
• Sex work and mental, health;
• Specificities of MSM and Trans sex workers; 
• Current issues and community challenges such as chemsex.
• Inclusion of peer workers; benefits of working with peer - based approaches, recruiting, training and supporting peer workers, risks and risk management associated with peer-based work,  advocating for the recognition of peer-based work.

The call for participants will be launched soon.

• Research & knowledge production

This workstream 3 activities:

• Development of participatory research and report on stigma and discrimination

ESWA develops participatory research on stigma and discrimination faced by sex workers in health care and HIV services. ESWA will hire and train 10 peer researchers from different European countries to conduct interviews and set up focus groups to gather data on discrimination in healthcare and HIV services at national levels (Find the questionnaire here and the call for participants here).

The research will focus on 10 different European countries where sex workers face a variety of stigma and discrimination with an intersectional perspective taking into account stigma and discrimination faced not only by sex workers but, more specifically, by LGBTQI+, migrant and racialised sex workers and sex workers living with HIV.

Based on these consultations, ESWA will develop a briefing paper that will provide an overview of the stigma and discrimination faced by sex workers in Europe with a focus on marginalised communities such as LGBTQI, migrant and racialised sex workers.

• Creation of a tool kit and workshop for healthcare professionals based in the research

The tool kit will identify best practices, challenges and give practical advice for healthcare professionals and HIV service providers. It will give concrete examples of what can be done in healthcare settings to better serve sex workers and especially sex workers facing multiple discriminations and will showcase best practices of initiatives happening on the ground. This tool kit can be used separately as a first step to train medical professionals or in combination with the workshop on sex work, stigma and discrimination developed for the Sex Work and Health Conference.

• Publication of two fact sheets on best practices for better inclusion of MSM and trans sex workers.

To further disseminate knowledge shared during the WS1 MSM and Trans SW trainings, two fact sheets showcasing best practices related to HIV service provision for male and trans sex workers will be produced. The fact sheets will include best practices and recommendations for the inclusion of trans and MSM sex workers in HIV services and programmes.

The various resources will be translated into French, Russian and Spanish to increase the reach of the resources and recommendations.

• Advocacy

The work stream 3 includes 3 activities:

• Development of the Sex Work & Health Network (SWHN)

ESWA will create and coordinate the Sex Work & Health Network (SWHN) to facilitate collaboration between various stakeholders working on sex work HIV and access to health. The SWHN will include representatives of sex workers’ health organisations, researchers, representatives of European institutions such as ECDC and DG Sante as well as international bodies such as WHO and UNAIDS.

ESWA will organise, facilitate and document quarterly SWHN meetings to share information between participants and strategise on how to best collaborate to improve sex workers’ access to health and HIV services. Topics will include HIV/STI and access to PrEP, mental health, data collection and discrimination in the health system.

• Participation in scientific and community events

ESWA will also participate in key events such as EACS in Poland and Europride in Malta to further disseminate research findings. 

• Coordination of the Sex Work & Health Conference.

As final step of the project, ESWA will coordinate the Sex Work & Heath Conference on barriers to access to healthcare and in particular HIV services for sex workers. The conference will be held over 3 days with ca. 100 participants including sex workers’ rights activists, representatives of civil society organisations and European and international institutions, policy makers, researchers and funders. 

Red Umbrella Academy 2 - RUA2

Building on the success of the first Red Umbrella Academy, which took place in 2020, ESWA is launching the Red Umbrella Academy 2.0 with the support of Gilead Science.

The programme is divided into three different workstreams: 

• Capacity building 

ESWA will coordinate a 3-day regional training for sex workers bringing together 24 sex workers’ rights activists from 8 countries. The training will include sessions on advocacy, HIV prevention, Quality of Life including mental health, community leadership, stigma and discrimination and takes into account the different intersecting identities of sex workers. 

For this second edition, the Academy will be held in English and Russian to better include sex workers from the CEECA region.

A key focus area of the training curriculum will be the main obstacles and challenges in access to combination prevention and especially in access to PrEP for sex workers as well as role of peer workers and community leadership in HIV prevention.

The training will take place in October in conjunction with the European Aids Conference EACS2023.

You can find the call for participants here.

• Research 

Sex workers remain a vulnerable population often ‘defined as’ difficult to reach by HIV prevention and treatment services. To better address this issue, ESWA is developing a participatory research project on access to and continuation of PrEP for sex workers. With this research project ESWA will explore the needs and challenges sex workers face in accessing PrEP in our region.

The goal of this research project is to document the access to PrEP for sex workers and to support advocacy activities at national, regional and international levels.

Participants in the RUA2 training will also take part in the research process and help map out the situation of access to PrEP for sex workers in their local contexts. 

The lead researcher on this project will be supported by an advisory expert committee of researchers who have expertise in participatory research and PrEP.

You can find the call-out for a lead researcher here.

• Advocacy

The goal of the research report on access to PrEP is to support advocacy efforts at local and international levels. The report will be translated in the 8 local languages of the training participants and launched at national levels. Small grants will support trainees in implementing local advocacy activities to share the findings of the research report on access to PrEP with local stakeholders (HIV activists, healthcare providers, researchers, policy makers, funders...). In doing so, project participants will apply and adapt the knowledge they have acquired during the training to the local contexts.

ESWA will also present the results of the report in different scientific and community events such as EACS2023.

Sex Work Therapist Training - SWTT

In 2021, ESWA implemented its first programme to support the mental health of sex workers and advocate for the inclusion of sex workers in mental health services. The programme, funded by ILGA Europe, was designed to offer tools on how to prevent and address mental health crises in the community while developing a briefing paper exploring the issues related to access to mental health care for sex workers and a tool kit to support sex worker organisations in dealing with mental health crises. 

ESWA identified therapists’ lack of knowledge and stigma around sex work as critical obstacles faced by sex workers in their access to mental health care. To address this issue, ESWA has developed the Sex Work Therapist Training (SWTT) project

to develop and deliver a training on sex work for counsellors and psychotherapists. 

The training has been developed by sex workers as we believe they are best placed to provide knowledge on their own lived experiences, in collaboration with mental health practitioners (see below for more information about the team).

The main objective of the training is to provide therapists with the tools to help sex workers feel positive embodiment within their personal and work lives even when presented with mental health challenges.

The different goals of the Sex Work Therapist Training are to:

- Reduce barriers to accessible mental health support for sex workers.

- Challenge therapists’ biases and stigmas to help bring inclusion and equity for sex workers within the therapy room.

- Provide resources and information which therapists can use to support sex workers.

- Be aware of stereotypes and the nuances of sex work.

The training takes place online and gathers around 15 therapists (or therapists in training). The training is delivered in English and is open to therapists based in Europe and Central Asia (WHO definition of Europe).

Participants will receive a Certificate after completion of the training.

The 8-hour training is divided into two parts spread over two half days:

- Part 1: sex work, stigma and discrimination

- Part 2: specific issues in mental healthcare settings

To be updated about the new dates of the training please register here.

e-MPOWER - Partnership to Overcome Challenges of Online Learning and to Empower Youth Actors in the Field of Sexual Health Promotion in the COVID-19 Era

With funding from Erasmus+ and in partnership with EATG and LEGEBITRA (Slovenia), ESWA has proudly collaborated to develop eMPOWER.

eMPOWER has been specifically designed to combat the additional challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic. With NGO capacity impacted by limited resources and legal restrictions, eMPOWER aims to increase the capacity of young advocates and activists working or volunteering in healthcare to help meet the needs of the sex worker community. Recognising the need for such training to be provided in remote, rather than in-person, settings, eMPOWER aims to meet the challenges and provide tools for effective online learning.

The project, running until September 2022, will:

• Adapt training activity for young advocates/activists previously offered by sexual health orgs so that it can be online
• Focus on mental health - particularly the impact of structural issues such as criminalisation and stigma - and offer tools to the community to deal with mental health issues
• Focus on sexual health - meeting the specific needs of the sex worker community, as well as those who may be living with HIV or a member of the LGBTQ+ community, and understanding how criminalisation and stigma interacts with these needs
• Provide knowledge of online safety and digital rights - such as data protection, privacy issues and censorship - which can be relevant to young stigmatised or criminalised populations
• Provide the means to exchange knowledge and best practices through an online platform providing a clear and implementable model of training that can be accessed by other organisations and advocates with a focus on sexual health

ESWA envisions the following outcomes from the eMPOWER project:

• Needs assessment and research to inform the design of future activities 
• Written recommendations based on the above
• Monitoring and evaluation framework of trainees to assess the impact of training activities
• Wellbeing guide for trainees
• Youth activist training materials online toolbox that will be freely accessible
• Presentation of the project outcomes via a public webinar, recorded and shared online via project partner social media platforms 
• Pilot training to test the programme and materials

Disclaimer for e-MPOWER

This project has received funding from the European Union’s ERASMUS+ programme under grant agreement No 008320 

The content of the project's outputs is solely the opinion of the author(s); The EU Commission is not liable for any use that may be made of the information contained therein.

The outputs of the project are licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0) licence.

Mental Health Programme

In 2021, ESWA implemented its first programme to support the mental health of sex workers and advocate for the inclusion of sex workers in mental health services. The programme was designed to offer tools on how to prevent and address mental health crises in the community while developing a briefing paper exploring the issues related to access to mental health care for sex workers. 

The capacity-building part of the programme included:

5 thematic session webinars open to all ESWA members: presentations and discussions on thematics such as sexual violence, anxiety, addiction, suicide, wellbeing

7 support sessions in a closed group of LGBTQI sex workers’ rights activists 

The resources include a briefing paper as well as a small ‘organisation tool kit’. The briefing paper is developed through an e-consultation with all ESWA members, focus groups and case studies on community-led projects in Europe and Central Asia. In parallel, an awareness campaign is being developed showcasing sex workers as part of the support sessions through illustrations and testimonies (illustrations by Ambrose).

Download the Briefing Paper on Sex Work and Mental Health

Download the Toolkit on Supporting Sex Workers' Mental Health and Wellbeing