Sex Workers Alliance Ireland (SWAI) said it is “running on fumes” and “is in immediate danger of closing due to lack of funding”.
SWAI is a non-governmental organisation established in 2009 by sex workers, academics, lawyers and activists to advocate for the rights of sex workers and a harm-reduction approach to law and policy surrounding sex work in Ireland.
In a statement in July, SWAI said it has “not confirmed any sustainable core funding for the future”, and will be “operating pared-back services for the remainder of 2025”.
“As it stands, we will then close at the end of the year,” it added.
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SWAI said its “radical work that critiques the Government, the gardaí, the Nordic Model, including client criminalisation and brothel keeping laws, makes us difficult to fund. We would not be giving voices to the needs and wants of sex workers in Ireland if we toned these statements down”.
The organisation held an EGM in August to notify members that if it does not secure funding, it will be taking the steps to close the organisation.
Linda Kavanagh, manager of communications and advocacy at SWAI, told The Irish Times that the organisation gets “pockets of money here and there, but it’s just not sustainable any more”.
“We had got some three-year funding from ReThink Ireland, we got a small one from the HSE LGBT Community Fund, we also have done our own little fundraisers. We get the odd little bit of money from the European Sex Workers Rights Alliance for research.”
She said it is “really difficult, generally, for sex worker-led organisations to get funds globally”.
“With the USAid cuts and stuff like that, that has a knock-on effect in all funding,” Ms Kavanagh said. “I think just generally the world is getting a bit more conservative, unfortunately, so we’re just in the worst possible time for us to come up against this issue.”
Regarding the issue the organisation takes with brothel-keeping laws, Ms Kavanagh explained that “the way the law defines a brothel is more than one sex worker working from a space. So they could just be sharing an apartment to keep the bills down or for security”.
“The vast majority of sex workers that we speak to want to be able to share a space with someone. And you know, a huge amount of that is because of safety,” she added.
Since announcing its pending closure, the organisation has stopped running its sex-worker-only meetups.
The organisation provides sex worker-awareness training for groups and individuals such as counsellors and therapists, and is still doing this “as much as possible”.
