For this Migrazine edition, we found it fitting to reach out to Red Edition, a local organization of migrant sex workers living in Vienna.
We believe sex work is a business where intimacy is implied yet not necessarily in a sense of something that is looked for. Migrazine: Could you describe the work of Red Edition and its main goal as a collective?
Since the majority of sex workers in Vienna are migrants, we have a focus on migrant sex workers rights within the larger sex worker movement and our priority is to create structures for migrant sex workers to self-organize. Therefore, in a permanent group was established to address the challenges and acting like a main point of contact between migrant sex workers and local, national and international actors, and other relevant bodies in the sex workers movement.
Migrazine: Could you tell us about the legal situation of migrant sex workers that are currently in Austria?
And also, how has their situation changed since the pandemic started? The list of disadvantages for sex workers in Austria is long: There are still no labor rights, total ban of sexwork during Corona, great dependence on most operators, despite being self-employed, obligation to pay taxes but there are no employee protection regulations.
