COVID19 – Solidarity Right Now! – The First Sex Workers Collective in the Balkans

Sex workers are no longer vulnerable to HIV only.

The global pandemic caused by the COVID19 has brought about many changes and threats to our health, forcing us into self-isolation, numerous limitation and poverty, simultaneously excluding us from the economic measures undertaken by national governments for protection against COVID19.

For this reason, we, STAR – The First Sex Workers Collective in the Balkans, call for a solidarity campaign in order to help our community, which is globally in dire financial situation due to the emergency measures in place for COVID19.

For many families, sex workers are either the only or the primary breadwinner. Therefore, the exposure to poverty directly affects our closest family members. Sex workers are faced with losing their jobs, drastic decline in the number of clients, which in turn leads to loss of income and their livelihood, work in unsafe conditions, lack of finances to satisfy the basic needs for them and their families, as well as having no access to healthcare services tailor-made for the community as the vast majority of associations that provide aid for sex workers have reduced their activities to a bare minimum or have completely shut down because of the pandemic.

The newly arisen situation does have a traumatic effect on many people, yet on the other hand it poses a challenge for all of us to show solidarity for one another, especially for those who are marginalized and overthrown by society.

In the meantime, allow us to express our profound concern for all the other communities that share the marginal borderlines with us.