Regional updates: Europe

Our members are listed on the left or you can click the red umbrellas on the map.

Regional Board Members

Nataliia Isaieva (Legalife-Ukraine), Ukraine.

Luca Stevenson (ESWA), The Netherlands.

Regional Networks

European Sex Workers Rights Alliance - ESWA (formerly ICRSE) is a European network of sex workers and allies across Europe and Central Asia. It was formed in 2004 to organise the 2005 European Conference on Sex Work, Human Rights, Labour and Migration and is based in Amsterdam, Netherlands.

The Sex Workers’ Rights Advocacy Network for Central and Eastern Europe and Central Asia (SWAN) is a network of sex workers' groups and civil society. SWAN started in 2006 as a project within Hungarian Civil Liberties Union (HCLU/TASZ) and became an independent organisation in 2012 and is based in Budapest, Hungary.

News articles from Europe region are listed below.

Regional updates

17th أبريل 2017 | Region: Europe

On 8 April 2017 in Paris, sex workers protested the new law that criminalises clients, marking the 1-year anniversary of the introduction of the law.

27th مارس 2017 | Region: Europe

SWAN members marked the International Sex Workers’ Rights Day on 3 March and the International Women's’ Day on 8 March.

15th مارس 2017 | Region: Europe

An application for mobile phones was developed for sex workers in Russia. The application is called Red Umbrella (Красный Зонт) and its goal is to inform male, female and transgender sex workers about their rights, sexually transmitted infections, about the history of sex workers’ movement in Russia and in the world.

28th فبراير 2017 | Region: Europe

From the 11 - 15 February 2017, NSWP member HPLGBT organised and conducted mobilisation activities for transgender sex workers and their allies in Kiev, Ukraine.

19th فبراير 2017 | Region: Europe

A new sex work law has been adopted in Ireland. The Sexual Offences Bill criminalises the purchase of sexual services and increase the penalties for indoor sex workers. Ireland has become a seventh country (after Sweden, Norway, Iceland, Northern Ireland, Canada, and France) to adopt the “Nordic Model” of criminalising the clients of sex workers.

Selling and buying sex was not illegal in Ireland. Communicating about sexual services in public was prohibited and third parties were criminalised. It was also illegal for sex workers to work together indoors.

4th يناير 2017 | Region: Europe

Michael Lodberg Olsen has launched Sexelance, a project that makes street-based sex work more safe. Sexelance is an ambulance car that can be used by street-based sex workers to see clients. Inside the car there are banners saying that the volunteers will call the police if there are signs of violence. The banners also encourage sex workers to inform the authorities if they are victims of trafficking.

17th نوفمبر 2016 | Region: Europe

Niurkeli, a 33-year-old transgender sex worker, was murdered by a client in Nantes, France. Niurkeli was migrant sex worker of Ecuadorian origin. She was living in Paris with her family. Since 2014 her work conditions have deteriorated. “She was known in the sex worker community and often went to demos for sex workers' rights and against criminalisation,” said Thierry Schaffauser from STRASS.

13th أكتوبر 2016 | Region: Europe

Laura Lee has won High Court permission to challenge a new law criminalising clients in Northern Ireland. She will also challenge Ireland's brothel keeping laws.

In 2015, Northern Ireland adopted the “Swedish Model”, which criminalises the clients of sex workers, despite the fact that “independent research by Northern Ireland’s Department of Justice showed that no locally based sex workers surveyed supported criminalising the purchase of sex, with 61 percent believing it would make them less safe and 85 per cent saying it would not reduce sex trafficking.”

5th سبتمبر 2016 | Region: Europe

A research project on human rights abuses experienced by sex workers was conducted by “Amelia” NGO and released on the 5 of November, 2015. The project was financially supported by SWAN and the Robert Carr Foundation.

31st أغسطس 2016 | Region: Europe

Iceland adopted the harmful “Swedish Model” in 2009, which criminalises the clients of sex workers.. There is no sex worker-led organisation or service provider for sex workers in Iceland. Stígamót - Education and Counseling Center for Survivors of Sexual Abuse and Violence - is the only organisation that provides services to sex workers. However, they consider all sex workers as victims of violence.

21st أغسطس 2016 | Region: Europe

Violent attacks against transgender people in Turkey continue unabated.

Hande Kader, a 23-year-old transgender woman based in Istanbul, disappeared a little over one week ago.

14th يوليو 2016 | Region: Europe

A regional training on the SWIT (Sex Worker Implementation Tool) took place in Budapest on 21-25 June 2016. Teams from 7 countries attended the training: Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Georgia, Macedonia, Serbia. Among them were female, male and transgender sex workers.

15th يونيو 2016 | Region: Europe

A majority of Members of Parliament (MPs) in Holland are supporting plans to make it an offence to pay for sex if sex workers are known or suspected to be victims of human trafficking. Sex work itself is legal in Holland.

24th مايو 2016 | Region: Europe

This following text has been translated by NSWP’s European Regional Correspondent. The text is from a petition entitled “Punish Vyacheslav Datsika of Beatings and Abuse of Sex Workers in St. Petersburg!” on Change.org. NSWP member Silver Rose encourages the global sex work community to sign this petition. NSWP has reported on the violence experienced by sex workers in Russia during this incident here.

18th مايو 2016 | Region: Europe

During the night of 17th to 18th of May, Viacheslav Datsik and his supporters illegally raided a brothel (known as a “salon” in Russia) in St Petersburg where 10 sex workers were working. The salon was on the 11th Line of Vasilyevsky Island. He broke down the door and under the threat of beating the women working there he forced them to undress completely, and then took them to the police naked.