The Open Society Public Health Program invites concept forms from civil society organizations and networks that seek to advance the health and human rights of sex workers in Europe. Marginalized by stigma and criminalization, sex workers face enormous obstacles to realizing their human rights, and oppression has led to extreme levels of violence, disease, and exploitation. Justice and health systems routinely fail sex workers, and at times compound their marginalization through harmful law enforcement practices and insurmountable barriers to health care. Sex worker organizing is sometimes vilified, further exacerbating problems related to workplace health and safety. The myriad of health challenges sex workers face cannot be addressed squarely within the health system, and the structural—and often political—determinants of sex worker health extend far beyond health care.
