Address
Kettenbrückengasse 15/4
1050 Wien
Telephone: +43.1.581 18 81
E-Mail: tampep@lefoe.at
Contact
Maga Maria Celeste Tortosa
Arrange an appointment via phone call
Monday, Wednesday and Friday: 9 am until 3 pm
Tuesday and Thursday: 2 pm until 5 pm
Counselling hours
by appointment
Arrange an appointment via phone call for a registration counselling and support
Tel. +43.699.12233102
Monday – Friday: 12 pm until 4 pm
Registration counselling (for all sexworkers* who want to work in Vienna)
by appointment
LEFÖ’s support work is holistic, client*-oriented and with special attention to social exclusion, marginalisation and social discrimination – and at the same time also focuses on community development in the sense of self-support.
For years, the staff* of LEFÖ has shared their expertise on sex work on a national and European level. As a result, LEFÖ has developed into a contact and information point that works nationwide, networks transnationally and combines information and research with support work through cultural mediation.
In order to draw public and media attention to the lack of rights of sex workers*, LEFÖ carried out nationwide campaigns in 2007 and 2008. Under the slogan “Sex workers lust for… their rights!”, information events, panel discussions, film presentations, artistic actions and much more were conceived and organised with the support of organisations and many individuals.
Counselling and support in other languages as required.
LEFÖ has been working with migrant sex workers* in Austria since the beginning of the 1990s and demands legal protection and social recognition of sex workers*. This requires the decriminalisation of sex workers*, their involvement in the process of public discussion and the legalisation of sex work through equal treatment with other workers* under labour legislation. Since 1995, LEFÖ has been a partner of the European research and intervention network TAMPEP (formerly: European Network for HIV/STI Prevention and Health Promotion among Migrant Sex Workers, www.tampep.eu) and developed the concept of cultural mediation together with other organisations. Cultural mediation is an important approach to mediating support work in health prevention, empowerment and the strengthening of sex workers*.
We speak of sex work in order to convey an accepting and supportive approach towards sexual service providers* (mostly women*, but also trans people and men*).
We also speak of sex work to focus on the work that is being carried out and the corresponding demands for comprehensive labour and social rights for sex workers*. We also speak of sex work to highlight the heterogeneity of workplaces and ways of working in the sex industry.
Cultural mediators* are not translators*. They are mediators* who know the legal and social situation in both the country of origin and the country of destination of migrant sex workers*.
Cultural mediators* have a broad professional knowledge of legal, social and health issues and deal with stigmatisation and discrimination in the context of sex work. They reflect on the common migration experience and support the interests of sex workers*. We counsell, inform, accompany, network and raise awareness. Since the early 1990s, LEFÖ has helped develop this concept of culture and migration as an innovative method in the field of sex work and migration and has expanded it into a comprehensive working methodology to reach and support one of the most marginalised groups of migrant women*. The embedding of cultural mediation in a migrant women’s* self-organisation corresponds to a low-threshold access and promotes the self-organisation and empowerment of women* and communities.
