From Mumbai’s Kamathipura area to Delhi’s GB Road and Kolkata’s Sonagachi district, women and transgender sex workers today are losing their homes, jobs and only source of income during the pandemic. For a community that has been historically ostracized, the novel coronavirus has meant India’s sex workers find themselves in an even more difficult situation.

The Higher Administrative Court in the city of Münster overturned a ban on sexual services only this week in Germany's most populous state, North Rhine-Westphalia. In several other German states, prostitutes are also allowed to work again. 

Sex workers feel less safe, more stigmatised and in greater fear of gardaí since a law criminalising the purchase of sex was enacted, a report from Maynooth university warns.

"Personer som selger sex, beskrives i rapporten som en «svært mobil gruppe som har hyppig nærkontakt med et bredt tverrsnitt av befolkningen». Forfatterne konkluderer med at myndighetene bør klargjøre om smittevernloven åpner for bistand i form av økonomisk støtte, dessuten bolig, til personer som ikke har fulle rettigheter i Norge, som smittevernhjelp."