Official websites use. Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites. Email: martine. The COVID pandemic and associated public health preventive measures such as lockdown and home confinement have posed unique challenges to female sex workers FSW globally, including in Canada where the sex trade is not formally recognized. In this commentary, we discuss the unintended consequences the pandemic has had on various social determinants of health among FSW.
We draw on a review of scholarly and grey literature, complemented by our experience with the Exit Doors Here program, a sex work exiting program implemented in Toronto, Canada.
Due to COVID, many FSW suddenly lost their main source of income, work conditions became riskier, and sheltering-in-place presented challenges for women with no safe housing. The slowdown of social and health care services also meant FSW were not receiving the required attention. Our recommendations are relevant to FSW and other marginalized groups, in the current context and in the context of future health, social, and economic crises. Keywords: access to care, program evaluation, risky sexual behavior, underserved communities, health promotion.
Female sex workers FSW experience a number of marginalizing social and health conditions which often force them into sex work, represent difficult circumstances once they are involved, and act as barriers to exiting the trade.
Despite increased adversity of FSW in the form of discrimination and harassment and loss of income during the pandemic, sex worker-led organizations worldwide reported their exclusion from emergency economic relief policies and national social protection schemes. Since the co-occurring public health, social, and economic crises brought about by COVID are likely to have long term impacts on FSW health and livelihoods, tailored mitigating strategies must immediately be developed and implemented to avert short- and long-term consequences.
