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Dear Friends, Supporters & Allies, 

In May, we started the month off by celebrating May 1st with members representing sex worker rights in the streets! We also published a statement on the devastating last minute cancellation of Rights Con. On May 13th, we launched our new strategic plan, presenting our roadmap for the next five years to members, donors and allies!

June will be another busy month, with June 2nd, International Sex Workers’ Day, as a highlight. We look forward to seeing everyone’s events and sharing our new documentary video capturing last year’s pan-European rally for sex workers’ rights! Next to this, we are working on our upcoming General Assembly on the 16th of June.

As always, thank you for your ongoing support.

In solidarity,
ESWA Team

By Elizabeth McGuinness (she/her), ESWA Policy Officer on Access to Justice

What does A Sex Worker Inclusive Gender Equality Strategy look like?

This month, ESWA published its (Sex Worker Inclusive) Gender Equality Strategy, in response to the European Commission's Gender Equality Strategy 2026-2030, from which sex workers were markedly absent. Our message is simple: A Gender Equality Strategy that excludes sex workers cannot claim to promote equality. In continuing to push for an approach that protects everyone’s rights, safety, and bodily autonomy without stigma and without discrimination, ESWA presents a complimentary Roadmap (based on that presented in the Commission's Strategy) to achieving Sex Worker Inclusive Gender Equality. A future-proof Gender Equality Strategy must explicitly safeguard bodily autonomy, reject criminalisation and by-laws that harm, and guarantee that sex workers are fully recognised as rights-holders within the EU’s equality framework.

The first ever EU Anti-Poverty Strategy fails to acknowledge precarity of sex workers

Speaking of Strategies, May saw the publication of the first ever EU Anti-Poverty Strategy by the European Commission. Several aspects of the Strategy are aligned with sex workers’ demands for labour, alongside other human rights, such as calls for non-precarious work contracts, training opportunities, and adequate social protections. However, despite acknowledging structural underpinnings and mechanisms of poverty (such as stigma/discrimination as a driver of poverty, the intersection of poverty and class, cycles of poverty and disadvantage, and recognition of the gendered nature of poverty, including precariousness of single mothers), the Strategy fails to recognise the specificity of how these underpinnings apply to and are experienced by sex workers.

For example, there was no acknowledgement of the role of whorephobia in reinforcing cycles of precariousness for sex workers, particularly single-mothers or other caregivers, nor of poverty as limiting agency, autonomy, and capacity to enact safety measures in sex work. Despite solid evidence, the Strategy also omitted recognition of poverty as a risk factor for both victimisation and perpetration of gender-based violence. Finally, while the Strategy reiterated the importance of access to financial services, this stopped short of acknowledging discrimination as a barrier to service access (a phenomenon reinforcing exclusion of sex workers from formal economies). This was also undercut by lack of acknowledgement of discrimination linked to transition to cashless economies, through which sex workers, undocumented migrants, informal labourers, Roma communities, among others are further disadvantaged.

See here the Joint Statement of the Coalition on the EU Anti-Poverty Strategy, to which ESWA is a party. In the coming months, ESWA will turn its attention to influencing the Commission's proposed recommendation on fighting housing exclusion, an issue with which sex workers, and particularly migrant sex workers, are all too familiar.

Inaugural European Coalition on Sex Worker Rights and Inclusion meeting of 2026

In early May, ESWA was also pleased to welcome members of the European Coalition on Sex Worker Rights and Inclusion for the inaugural Coalition meeting of 2026. ESWA presented an overview of its Strategic Plan 2026-2030, followed by Coalition Members sharing priorities on issues intersecting with sex workers’ rights. ESWA looks forward to sustained collaboration with the Coalition, in continuing to advocate for our communities at the regional policy level, and beyond.

By Ana Ornelas (she/her), ESWA Policy Officer

ESWA attends The Computers, Privacy and Data Protection (CPDP) Conference in Brussels

During the week of May 19th, ESWA’s Executive Director, Kali Suhdra, and our Policy Officer for Digital Rights, Ana Ornelas, headed to Brussels for one of Europe's premier digital rights gatherings: the CPDP conference. CPDP brings together scholars, activists and EU policymakers to debate the future of digital rights.

Representing ESWA on a panel titled “Is Progressive Tech Policy Dead?”, Ana Ornelas reminded the audience that marginalised communities, particularly sex workers, have long been the primary targets of the surveillance, discrimination, and criminalisation that are now becoming mainstream. She emphasised that we cannot sanitise activism, noting that the digital rights movement has immense opportunities to learn from the resilience and resourcefulness of sex worker advocacy. Ultimately, her message was clear: because sex workers are among the most severely impacted by invasive data harvesting, surveillance and discriminatory content moderation, their voices must always have a seat at the table.

We need your help: Answer ESWA’s survey on age verification technology

We are inviting our sex worker-led members to participate in a new survey exploring the impacts of age verification on sex work. The survey takes about 20 minutes to complete and will remain open until June 8th. Your insights are very valuable to us, and after completing the survey, you may also be invited to join a follow-up focus group, which will be compensated. Help us better understand and advocate against the impacts of age verification on your livelihood! Please take the survey here.

Sexualised Deepfakes to Be Banned 

The final text of the AI Omnibus isn't officially out yet, but the ban on non-consensual sexualised deepfakes is already a reality. While we are glad to see consent recognised in the text (allowing for the lawful generation of consensual AI content) we are disappointed that the law focuses so much on the final output rather than control over the data used to train these AI models.

We also have serious concerns about the threshold for "identifiable persons." Under the current text, a deepfake only needs to prove consent if the person in it is easily identifiable. However, a massive amount of content stolen from sex workers to train generative AI doesn’t include identifiable body parts. Leaving this out is a major oversight.

ESWA provided strong feedback during consultations on how to reshape this law to better protect sex workers and victims of tech-facilitated gender-based violence. Sadly, our input was requested too late in the process to make a real dent. This just goes to show how vital it is to engage with sex workers from day one on legislation that directly impacts their livelihoods. Stay tuned - we will share a full breakdown as soon as the text is published.

Health   By Lisa Philippo (she/her), Deputy Director

ESWA is co-leading a European survey on sex work, travel and sexual health access! We want to make it easier to access PrEP and sexual health services anywhere you go, so you can stay safe without having to re-explain your needs or your sex work at every new doctor’s appointment. We invite you to participate in this anonymous survey to learn about your good and bad experiences while travelling.  This helps us work towards a system for stigma-free sexual health services for sex workers in all of Europe. Start the survey here

By Wszebor Sienkiewicz (he/him), ESWA Director of  Communication and Campaigns

50 years of the sex workers’ rights movement - new documentary premiering on June 2nd!

This year, we have a very special treat for you to celebrate International Sex Workers' Day: a new documentary movie produced by ESWA and the community. The video captures highlights from the incredible material submitted after last year's pan-European day of collective action that commemorated 50 years of International Sex Workers' Day. We will revisit how the day was celebrated across Europe and Central Asia, with recordings from:

Amsterdam, Netherlands

Barcelona, Spain

Brussels, Belgium

Kyiv, Ukraine

Lyon, France

Malmö, Sweden

Venice, Italy

Yerevan, Armenia

We invite you to learn how sex workers organise, celebrate and fight for our rights: from political debates, to goosebumps-inducing art and performances, and always with community love, care, and solidarity. 

The video will premiere on June 2nd on ESWA YouTube.

"Body Monetisation": A blog article on sex work and fashion 

ESWA is striving to be more present in the intersections of sex work, culture and art, starting with opening our blog to contributions. This month, we are happy to introduce a piece on parallels between the sex and fashion industries. "Body Monetisation: The body used as a commodity for monetisation and a means of creative production" was contributed by Andrew Culloo, artist and designer.  

Read the blog post here!

Would you like to write for the ESWA blog? Email [email protected] with a brief description of your idea!

Red Umbrella Sweden Hosts First S.T.A.N.D. Conference and is holding an online sale which ends June 2nd, in memory of the occupation of Église Saint-Nizier!

Red Umbrella Sweden is deeply grateful to have hosted our first S.T.A.N.D. Conference and Fundraiser at PAGE 28, a local queer bookstore and cultural space. Together, we reflected on how the Swedish Model impacts sex workers, shared strategies for safety and community care, and discussed the ongoing fight for labour rights and protection.

We ended the Saturday with a fundraising party hosted by Atlemos, kicking off the evening with games, performances, and music. People kept streaming in throughout the night, and by later in the evening the queue stretched long outside. Thanks to everyone who showed up and contributed, RUS raised more than double the amount we originally hoped to collect.

Read more

Red Umbrella Sweden is also holding a merch sale in memory of the occupation of Église Saint-Nizier!

Don’t miss the opportunity to support our work in bringing sex workers in Sweden together through community and our fight for safer working conditions. Our Tradera auction shop will be open until the end of June 2nd, so be quick before it’s too late! 

Shop here

May 20th, Centre LGTBI de Barcelona, hosted an event leading up to June 2nd, International Sex Workers’ Day

Centre LGTBI de Barcelona invited sex workers to share stories, demands and struggles through fanzines as an expressive and creative format! They will launch the fanzines at an event June 3rd at Candy Darling Bar! 

Shoutout to Scotland for Decrim for their SMK nomination!

We want to express our congratulations to Scotland for Decrim who were nominated this month for SMK National Campaigner Awards 2026, in the David & Goliath category! Their nomination came in the wake of their successful efforts to fight proposed client criminalisation legislation in Scotland. In February, their hard work paid off and the bill failed to pass stage one in the Scottish parliament due to their  widespread and effective mobilisation and advocacy efforts! Read more about their nomination here.

SAVE shares English Version of Media Guide for Sex Workers and Journalists!

SAVE (Sex Workers Against Violence & Exploitation) translated their Dutch media guide (made by sws and journalists, for sws and journalists) into English.  Feel free to use it and spread it! Its written for sws and journalists in the Netherlands (with the aim of different, more nuanced language and imagery in the media) but some parts are universal and important for sws all over the world!

Read here

Read and Share the newly published article, “Stigma Power and the Specificity of Sex Work: An Intersectional Analysis”, published in Societies.

The article brings together theoretical and empirical insights developed across several major research projects.A major focus of the discussion is the relationship between stigma and violence. The article argues that criminalisation, including client criminalisation models such as the so-called Swedish/Nordic model, is strongly associated with increased violence, exclusion from services, and barriers to justice for sex workers.

At the same time, the paper argues that decriminalisation is a necessary and crucial first step towards improving the safety, labour rights, health, and human rights of sex workers. However, legal reform alone is insufficient without broader anti-stigma interventions, institutional reform, migrant rights protections, and support for sex worker self-organisation.

Read here

This Sunday, May 31st, “STRIPPER,” Premieres in Vilnius, Lithuania.

“STRIPPER” is an autobiographical contemporary dance solo work created by Ieva Navickaitė, exploring the body as a workplace, a political site, and a creative instrument.The performance will premiere on May 31st at The Arts Printing House in Vilnius, Lithuania. Beyond the performance itself, Ieva is committed to developing STRIPPER as a platform for dialogue and plans to facilitate post-show discussions with local sex workers, activists, and organisations. She writes, “These encounters are very important to me, as spaces where sex workers speak for themselves are still too rare, and urgently needed.”

Buy tickets here