We’re going to say it to you straight. We want to be transparent. SWAI is going to run out of money by April of this year.
Despite great efforts, SWAI has no secured or expected income to fund our core work due to being viewed as too radical for publicly critiquing the Nordic Model, government, and policing. We reject the conflation of sex work with human trafficking and gender-based violence by so-called feminist organisations and refuse to uphold these injustices against sex workers.
Funding for sex worker-led organising is incredibly hard to find and we experience a very hostile funding climate in Ireland due to sex work being criminalised and conflated with human trafficking, both in public opinion and in legislation implementing the Nordic model since 2017. There are very few organisations willing to fund our work. We need your support.
We’re asking our allies to do the 28 Days for SWAI challenge, a fundraiser for SWAI that will take place in February. As a team, we are aiming to raise €10,000altogether to fund SWAI’s vital work.
We have been fighting hard to raise the voice of sex workers, and recent work includes the first edition of our sex worker-created Zine, the establishment of the SWAI Allies Network, funding from ESWA to research the housing needs of sex workers, meeting with other sex worker organisations and a politician in Westminster, rollout of our hugely successful Sex Worker Awareness Training superseding our target, numerous media interviews and press releases, and an incredibly successful creative event in collaboration with A4 Sounds in Dublin in 2023.
It is vital that sex workers have a voice in Ireland. Recent research has shown how harshly sex workers feel stigma in Ireland. In recent years sex workers have been murdered, stalked, harassed and assaulted. SWAI is still the first point of call for sex workers who have been evicted, who have experienced violence at the hands of clients or the Gardaí, who have been turned away from sexual violence, domestic violence and mental health organisations and sex workers who need signposting to other services. Sex workers return to us again and again because we are judgement-free and meet them where they are at. Our focus in the past few years has been to work with well-funded organisations so that they provide stigma-free services.
We are worried that the review of the law regarding sex work will be pushed out until we run out of money, and we will be unable to coordinate a response. We are concerned that without support for SWAI, the voices of sex workers will disappear in Ireland. There will be no alternative voice in Ireland expressing the wants and needs of sex workers.
If you are interested in participating in our 28 Days for SWAI challenge please let us know and we can send you the information. Alternatively, you can donate to the crowdfund directly. We plan to launch some merch in the near future.
We rely on you, our supporters, to ensure our work continues. Can you help?