Negotiating multiple risks: health, safety and well-being among sex workers in Brazil in times of Covid 19

Many sex workers in Brazil face multiple forms of exclusion and risks to health and well-being, including low and sporadic earnings, violence, and STDs. Interventions into sex workers’ lives to address the Covid-19 pandemic are potentially heightening their precarity without effectively protecting them from illness. This social science, arts and public health collaboration builds on our NGO partner’s efforts to inform sex workers about safer working practices. Using innovative participatory research methods, it advances knowledge and understanding of the specific risks encountered by sex workers in their daily lives during the pandemic, and the obstacles they face when navigating a pathway between multiple threats. Research participants and the research/creative team will co-produce photo essays and a magazine that will educate policy makers and NGOs on the barriers to enacting safer health practices and inform sex workers about strategies to mitigate risks.

Many sex workers in Brazil face multiple forms of exclusion and risks to health and well-being, including low and sporadic earnings, violence, and STDs. Interventions into sex workers’ lives to address the Covid-19 pandemic are potentially heightening their precarity without effectively protecting them from illness. This social science, arts and public health collaboration builds on our NGO partner’s efforts to inform sex workers about safer working practices. Using innovative participatory research methods, it advances knowledge and understanding of the specific risks encountered by sex workers in their daily lives during the pandemic, and the obstacles they face when navigating a pathway between multiple threats. Research participants and the research/creative team will co-produce photo essays and a magazine that will educate policy makers and NGOs on the barriers to enacting safer health practices and inform sex workers about strategies to mitigate risks.