Migrant and mobile sex workers in Europe.
TAMPEP is a migrant sex worker-led network, which sex worker-led groups and organizations can join.
In 1993, the needs of migrant sex workers and the lack of knowledge about their living and working conditions were the staring points of the TAMPEP Network. This is still relevant today, as migrant and mobile sex workers continue facing multiple forms of discrimination and exclusion due to the convergence of repressive measures against migration, health and sex work.
We currently make up the majority of sex workers in Europe, and our share of the community is growing. At the same time, we lack the most rights because we are not citizens in our host countries, and many of us are even undocumented or working illegally and therefore completely unrecognised as rights bearers. Furthermore, we are the first population to be used by abolitionists in their crusade against trafficking, even though we are the first group harmed by subsequent raids and deportations. We experience the highest levels of violence, stigma and discrimination. We are excluded from social, cultural, health, employment, education, civil and political resources, which also worsens our vulnerability.
TAMPEP is a migrant sex worker-led network that focuses exclusively on advocacy and networking, with the aim of leveraging the network’s alliances and long legacy to make our voices heard more broadly and in more privileged spaces than ever before. These strategic choices were made to better achieve TAMPEP’s overarching goal to amplify the voices of migrant and mobile sex workers in Europe as rights holders by ensuring their presence in key advocacy spaces. We do this by using a tripartite approach to human rights advocacy and networking. The right to work, the right to health, and the right to move freely intersectionally inform TAMPEP’s work, with the diversity of migrant and mobile sex workers as a foundational and crosscutting value. These are our core areas of activism, and we consider them interconnected.