Pye Jakobsson is a former sex worker, presently taking a break from sex work while working in HIV-prevention. Her current roles include Project Manager at Hiv-Sverige/HIV-Sweden, Co-Founder and Coordinator at Rose Alliance, an NGO by and for current and former sex and erotic workers in Sweden, and President of The Global Network of Sex Work Projects (NSWP), which advocates for rights based health and social services, freedom from abuse and discrimination, and self determination for sex workers.

Could you share how you became involved in the sex workers’ rights movement and why it’s so important to you?

I actually started out in the HIV-rights movement in Portugal in the ’80s. When I moved back to Sweden in 1994 I was quite shocked at the judgmental and infantilizing attitudes there was against sex workers and just started doing activism on my own. I was quite naïve I guess as it was sort of…