Sex Work Polska

Contact email
Who do you work with?

Sex Work Polska works with female, male, non-binary and transgender sex workers.

How are sex workers involved in your organisation?

Sex workers constitute more than 80 percent of members of our collective and play a key role in all decision making processes. Our group is a non-hierarchicall collective and we make all decisions consensually.

Which of NSWP priority areas does your organisation work on?
Oppose the criminalisation and other legal oppression of sex work and support its recognition as work
Critique the trafficking paradigm that conflates representations of sex work, migration, and mobility
Advocate for universal access to health services, including primary health care, HIV and sexual and reproductive health services
Speak out about violence against sex workers, including violence from police, institutions, clients, and intimate partners, while challenging the myth that sex work is inherently gender-based violence
Oppose human rights abuses, including coercive programming, mandatory testing, raids and forced rehabilitation
Challenge stigma and discrimination against sex workers, their families and partners, and others involved in sex work
Advocate for the economic empowerment and social inclusion of sex workers as sex workers
What are the two main challenges that the sex workers you work with face

The main challenge is the criminalisation of sex work in Poland. Although provision of sexual services is not illegal, sex workers are being targeted by municipal by-laws and third parties are being criminalised. Hence, sex workers’ working environment and all labour relations are criminalised, what pushes sex workers underground and exposes our community to risk of violence both from clients, third parties, the police and general population. 2) Since sex work is not recognised as work, migrant sex workers face problems with regularizing their stay in Poland, they do not have access to health-care or other public services.

Describe other areas of your work

1) We provide outreach service to sex workers both indoors and outdoors. We distribute condoms, provide free of charge psychological support, crisis intervention, access to medical care, legal support. We organize self-defense workshops.
2) We advocate for the decriminalisation of sex work, recognition of sex work as work and access to rights for our community. 3) We have organized a community emergency fundrised to help sex workers in need in the time of COVID-19 pandemic in Poland. We have supported over 140 sex workers with money transfers.

Region
Country
Poland