To alleviate the impacts of COVID-19 policies, many initiatives have been developed by civil society organisations – NGOs, local governments, or citizens. A team of national researchers from the RESISTIRÉ project has collected and highlighted a set of particularly relevant initiatives in 27 European countries and in Iceland, Serbia, the United Kingdom and Turkey. These Better Stories cover eight specific domains: gender-based violence, the labour market, the economy, gender-pay and pension gaps, gender care gaps, decision-making and politics, environmental justice, human and fundamental rights.

This Better Story was collected by Elisabeth Anna Guenther and Annika Martin.

What is IG24?

The Interessengemeinschaft der 24-Stunden-Betreuer_innen (IG24) is a self-organised, non-partisan association which aims to represent the interests of migrant live-in caregivers in Austria.

The initiative is born out of the collaboration of Iniciativa24, the association of Slovakian carers, and DREPT, the association of Romanian carers. As an umbrella organisation, it supports bottom up, self-organised initiatives of caregivers.

A wide range of activities

IG24 offers legal counselling for carers in their mother tongue and engages in community building, networking activities and lobbying.

This interest group lobbies for live-in caregivers as a professional group. As they are considered self-employed, migrant carers often lack autonomy and are dependent on agencies, which act as an intermediate between care recipients in Austria and caregivers.

The group recently filed a legal case to fight bogus self-employment; it remains to be seen if the court will indeed take on it and open a case.

Currently, IG24 has two specific projects running:

• one project establishing digital counselling and information videos in the language spoken by many migrant live0in carers
• the second one in collaboration with LEFO-IBF titled ‘care4care’; this project focusses on how to improve the working situation for live-in caregivers and their working rights.

Find out more about the initiative

Photo by Dominik Lange on Unsplash

To alleviate the impacts of COVID-19 policies, many initiatives have been developed by civil society organisations – NGOs, local governments, or citizens. A team of national researchers from the RESISTIRÉ project has collected and highlighted a set of particularly relevant initiatives in 27 European countries and in Iceland, Serbia, the United Kingdom and Turkey. The initiatives currently cover eight specific domains: gender-based violence, the labour market, the economy, gender-pay and pension gaps, gender care gaps, decision-making and politics, environmental justice, human and fundamental rights.

Coping with high levels of stress and preventing violence

During the first lockdown, civil society organisations in Austria, Germany and Switzerland worked together to help men cope with stress during the COVID crisis and more specifically to prevent domestic violence. These organisations are specialized in working with boys, men and fathers.

The toolkit includes 10 concrete recommendations for men to follow, to help them remain calm and non-violent, such as taking space to tend to their needs, sharing their emotions and protecting their boundaries.

To this day the toolkit has been translated in 22 languages, thereby increasing its reach, and widely shared by many civil society organizations across Europe. Leaflets are also available as templates including empty space for inserting national or regional information.

Find out more about the CSOs:

The umbrella organisations for working with men, boys and fathers in Austria (Dachverband Männerarbeit Österreich), Germany (Bundesforum Männer) and Switzerland (Männer.ch), in collaboration with Fachstelle Agredis, männerbüro züri and Fachstelle Gewalt Bern

To alleviate the impacts of COVID-19 policies, many initiatives have been developed by civil society organisations – NGOs, local governments, or citizens. A team of national researchers from the RESISTIRÉ project has collected and highlighted a set of particularly relevant initiatives in 27 European countries and in Iceland, Serbia, the United Kingdom and Turkey. The initiatives currently cover eight specific domains: gender-based violence, the labour market, the economy, gender-pay and pension gaps, gender care gaps, decision-making and politics, environmental justice, human and fundamental rights.

This societal initiative has been collected by: Elisabeth Anna Guenther and Celina Beck

Protecting all sex workers 

In August 2020, Berufsvertretung Sexarbeit Österreich launched a campaign focusing on the precarious working conditions of sex workers in the context of the Covid19 crisis. It is a response to the government’s Corona aid support programmes and their access criteria, which exclude sex workers through bureaucratic hurdles. 

The initiative aimed to help sex workers cope with their situation during the pandemic. Among sex workers, some groups are particularly in need of protection: migrant women, single mothers, people affected by poverty or in debt, people suffering from addiction, homeless or houseless people. 

Sex in a state of emergency  

The initiative aimed to help sex workers cope with their situation during the pandemic. Among sex workers, some groups are particularly in need of protection: migrant women, single mothers, people affected by poverty or in debt, people suffering from addiction, homeless or houseless people. 

Due to the lockdown, sex workers had no income as sex work was legally prohibited between 3 November 2020 and 19 May 2021. Sexual services are not subject to the Austrian trade regulations and are thus excluded from revenue subsidy, as it was the case for other businesses. The guidelines for revenue subsidies explicitly state that “establishments engaged in the practice of prostitution” are exempted. As self-employed, sex workers can apply for money from the Hardship Fund, but often fail to meet access criteria, such as an Austrian bank account or proof of income. 

The pressure to work illegally therefore increased and Berufsvertretung Sexarbeit Österreich was founded in response to this. BSÖ collected money through the fundraising campaign “Helping is sexy” which were then redistributed by the association, for example in the form of shopping vouchers for sex workers. 

During lockdown, other feminist initiatives also supported sex worker; LEFOE, in Vienna, collected money for (migrant) sex workers, and Maiz, in Linz, created information videos in six languages to support (migrant) sex workers to apply for the Hardship Fund. 

Berufsvertretung Sexarbeit Österreich was founded by sex worker and activist Shiva Prugger in response to the situation of sex workers during the pandemic. The centre Sophie  – offering counselling and support in legal, social and health-related areas for women who are or have been involved in sex work – is used as the association’s headquarters.

Read more about the initiative