“We can only count on ourselves”: Poland’s sex workers struggle amid pandemic

By Kate Martyr

“I always say, ‘Of course you can visit me, but please note I have cats if you have allergies’. I don’t want to have a situation of someone dying on my bed,” Emilka says. She usually shuts the cats out of the room, but admits that “anything can happen, especially as my cats like putting their claws in lots of different places”.

“They destroyed a lot of my [sex] toys,” Emilka adds after a pause, bursting into laughter in our video chat.

Like many people during the coronavirus pandemic, 26-year-old Emilka has had to get used to working from home: fitting her job around studying psychology, creating the right kind of working environment and trying to stay motivated.

But Emilka is a sex worker. In Poland, this means that her job is not recognised as work by the government.

According to Agata Dziuban, a sociologist at Kraków’s Jagiellonian University and campaigner for sex workers’ rights, there are an estimated 200,000 sex workers in the country.

In Poland, sex workers are not officially penalised or criminalised (although “third parties”, such as those who facilitate or benefit from sex work are). However, they are also not formally recognised as workers either.

This has left them vulnerable during the pandemic when, without officially registered income, there is no way for them to prove that it has decreased or disappeared, and therefore qualify for state support, notes Mikołaj Czerwiński, an expert on equal treatment at Amnesty International Poland. “The pandemic and related restrictions have had an immense influence on the lives of sex workers,” he says.

“Sex workers saw they were alone,” adds Emilka.

An unregulated industry

The unregulated nature of the industry meant that working conditions were often difficult even before the pandemic.

Emilka has worked in strip clubs for around five years, including in Romania and Spain as well as Poland, doing shifts of up to 13 hours. She would face “petty financial punishments from the bosses for putting a leg in the wrong place”.

Emilka

Wages were also unpredictable. Emilka worked on commission rather than an hourly wage, meaning some months she could earn up to 10,000 zloty (€2,200) but in others she would get nothing. During the pandemic, her earnings fell to an average of just 100 to 200 zloty a week.

“Some girls would not be earning anything,” she adds. “There is a constant uncertainty around payment. You are in constant stress.” In addition, sex workers are not entitled to state health insurance through their job and must pay for it themselves.

Pandemic forces strip clubs to close

Strip clubs were forced to close around March 2020, along with other non-essential businesses during the first lockdown brought in to curb the spread of the virus. Emilka’s bosses at the clubs tried to apply for the government’s support scheme for businesses to help pay employees.

“They don’t write [on the form] that you are a stripper, they put you are a dancer or a hostess,” she says. But the applications were unsuccessful.

“Since sex work is not recognised as work and since labour relations in sex work venues are not recognised as labour relations, sex workers were not protected in any way by this [programme]. They did not get any state support,” Dziuban explains.

In June, the strip clubs briefly reopened. According to Emilka, the conditions in the club had deteriorated.

“There was a lack of customers,” she says, explaining that strip clubs often relied on large groups of tourists visiting – something which was not happening due to travel restrictions.

Her bosses also required her to work more days than usual in an attempt to earn more money ahead of the next closure. Eventually, Emilka quit: “I didn’t see the sense of working there because I wasn’t earning money.”

Adapting to change

Without state support, Emilka had to find a way to support herself. She began working on webcams, initially with a friend.

As a member of Sex Work Polska, a sex workers’ collective, Emilka says she had “the privilege” of a network of other girls in different areas of the industry. They were able to share advice and exchange ideas.

Anna, a 22-year-old escort and adult content maker, set up a Facebook group for sex workers – the only one in Poland. “The group was an amazing idea” that provided much needed support, Emilka says.

But Emilka, like many working from home during the pandemic, found that it was difficult to motivate herself. She switched to escort work, offering “full service” – meaning full sex. This suited her, she says, although admits that it is not for everyone.

Emilka’s job transition came with its own business skillset and challenges that she had to quickly adapt to. She started off offering hour-long appointments and renting an apartment through Airbnb. “But I realised I was spending a lot of money, so I decided to meet with [clients] at their places instead.”

Emilka said she does not mind working alone and feels lucky to have her own apartment. However, if she wanted to work there with another sex worker for safety, she would be breaking the law. The law criminalises “girls working with other girls” in the same way as working in a brothel, Emilka explains.

Emilka was not the only sex worker who reskilled during the pandemic. Anna says she had an influx of men and women seeking advice on how to work on online webcam sites – where live adult content performances are streamed live on the internet.

Anna

Anna herself had branched out into escort work shortly before the pandemic struck in early 2020, due to the social isolation that came with working as a camgirl. Though she notes that some women stopped working, fearful of the new virus, for her this was not an option. “When I’m not able to work I have no money, no income.”

According to Anna, there was not much concern among her clients about catching the virus. Only once did a man ask if both he and Anna could wear facemasks while having sex. “Is this some kind of fetish?” she asked him.

The pandemic also prompted Anna to diversify her income stream. She recently set up profiles on online adult content subscription services such as OnlyFans. Like Emilka, though, she has faced challenges, finding working as an escort tiring and sometimes struggling with her mental health.

Anna and Emilka’s transitions to different types of sex work are typical of how the pandemic is affecting sex workers in Poland, according to Dziuban. After brothels and strip clubs closed, “some of [the workers] are moving towards other forms of sex work and some are just lost, left without income”.

This has been compounded by the deteriorating economic situation, caused by months of lockdown restrictions on businesses. “A lot of people lost their jobs. A lot of people are in a crisis situation. So the number of clients is radically declining. Sex workers from across the country tell us that they are providing services, but have no clients,” Dziuban says.

Sex workers organise their own fund

In addition to reskilling and setting up a support group, sex workers also established their own emergency fund through Sex Work Polska, which has raised around 38,000 zloty (€8,500) to date. “We decided that we need to respond because we know that we cannot really count on the government,” Dziuban explains.

“We created a fundraiser for the sex worker community, because we’ve realised that we can only count on ourselves and people were basically starving. People didn’t have money for medication, or to buy laptops for their children,” she adds.

A total of 169 sex workers have received funding from the organisation. Anyone who requested financial aid from the fund received it, to “avoid disciplining and telling people how they should spend this money”. The transfers were relatively small, around €50 or €60. But such amounts can be “life-saving” in Poland, Dziuban stresses.

In addition to financial support, the collective has also provided its members with psychological and legal support, as well as offering outreach telephone calls to sex workers who were quarantined alone.

Government policies hit sex workers and women

As well as the pandemic, sex workers in Poland have also felt impacted by the conservative ruling party’s approach to reproductive health. In 2017, it made morning-after pills available only on prescription, meaning Poland was one of only two countries in the EU with such tight restricted access.

It has also expressed support for tightening Poland’s abortion law – already one of Europe’s strictest – including the recent constitutional court ruling that introduces a near-total ban on abortion.

These issues “affect me not only because I’m a woman, but also because I’m a sex worker,” says Emilka. Access to emergency contraception was already difficult, she explains. “I might have a situation where my condom bursts and I need the morning-after pill. It’s not easy to get hold of.”

“In countries like Poland, where sexuality is a taboo and access to abortion and contraception is hindered, the issue of sexual work in mostly ignored or suppressed,” comments Czerwiński from Amnesty.

Certainly it is a topic few officials are interested in discussing. Poland’s Ministry of Family and Social Affairs and the police failed to respond to our requests for comment on sex work. Warsaw’s city hall said that this issue “falls beyond the competence of the local government”.

Although there are organisations in Poland that advocate legal recognition of sex work, no bill regulating the sector has ever reached the stage of being tabled in the parliament, Czerwiński points out.

“In recent years, however, we had instances of sex workers breaking their silence and speaking up in the media, which may pave the way for more popular recognition of this issue, but it’s still a long way away,” he adds.

It is these conservative attitudes towards sex work in Poland, rather than the pandemic itself, that are prompting Emilka to consider working in Germany or Switzerland – where sex work is legalised within designated areas.

“I hope our government will recognise our work as work. I wish third parties wouldn’t be criminalised…and that working with someone else was not viewed as illegal, because sometimes people can’t work from their own home,” Emilka says.

“We should be allowed to work with each other, with a friend – it is safer to work with someone. I dream about getting paid regularly and I want better sexual education, I really want it for everyone.”

Additional reporting by Agnieszka Wądołowska

Main image credit: Anna

Kate Martyr

Kate Martyr is a German-based British freelance journalist contributing mainly to Deutsche Welle, covering social issues and breaking news.