In 1968, Swiebel was elected as the national chair of the newly formed Federatie Studenten Werkgroepen Homoseksualiteit (Federation of Student Working Groups on Homosexuality, FSWH). It was an
umbrella organization, which coordinated activist associations of LGBT students in Dutch universities. In cooperation with a progressive youth center, the FSWH organized the first LGBT demonstration in the Netherlands and probably throughout Europe. On 21 January 1969 the demonstrators handed out a pamphlet and candy hearts to the members of the
States General of the Netherlands at the
Binnenhof in the Hague to protest Article 248bis of the Dutch Criminal Code. The article, introduced in 1911, established the
age of consent for same-sex relations at 21 and for heterosexual relations at 16, as a method of discouraging homosexuality. From 1969 to 1971, and from 1973 to 1975, she was on the board of the
Cultuur en Ontspanningscentrum (Culture and Leisure Center, COC), which had been established in 1946 as a shelter and prudent advocacy organization for '
homophiles'. Swiebel belonged to an action group (Nieuw Lila, i.e. 'New Lilac') that wanted to steer the COC in a more socially critical direction. Swiebel ran the political science library at the University of Amsterdam between 1972 and 1977. From 1973, she worked for feminist groups like the
Man Vrouw Maatschappij, coordinating actions to include sexual orientation in the fight against discrimination. In 1974 and 1975, she served on the University of Amsterdam's 'Grewel Committee', which proposed to introduce the university's first
women's studies program. In 1977, she began to work on the national emancipation committee, a government body that aimed to establish policy for women's equality. She served as a senior civil servant at the Department for the Co-ordination of Emancipation Policy (DCE) in the
Ministry of Social Affairs and Employment in 1982 and served in that capacity until 1995. Simultaneously, Swiebel began serving as the head of the Dutch delegation for the
United Nations Commission on the Status of Women in 1988 and was the vice chair of the commission in 1992 and 1993. She continued her service until 1995 and that year participated in the Dutch government's delegation to the
United Nations'
World Conference on Women, held in Beijing. The purpose of the conference was to create a strategic plan for the global efforts to support women's right to self-determination. From 1995, Swiebel worked in various positions at the Ministry of Social Affairs and Employment, simultaneously serving as the chair of the
Council of Europe's Steering Committee for Equality between 1989 and 1995. In 1999, she was elected as a
Member of the European Parliament for the
Dutch Labour Party and served until 2004. During her tenure, Swiebel was involved in legislation and produced reports which focused on free movement of persons throughout the
European Union (EU), including asylum and migration laws. She proposed anti-discrimination legislation and an expansion of the
EU Charter of Fundamental Rights. She worked on expanding equal opportunities for, and equal treatment of all persons in the member states and stressed the need to analyze the impact of anti-terrorism policies on human rights, noting that police misconduct and judicial deficiencies often impacted citizen's rights. After retiring from politics, Swiebel continued her activism, inter alia as Co-President o the International Conference on LGBT Human Rights, hosted at the
2006 World Outgames in
Montreal. She was one of the primary drafters of the
Declaration of Montreal. Her published works focus on human rights and policy. In articles such as
Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Human Rights: The Search for an International Strategy, she has analyzed the different stances between the EU and the UN with regard to their ability to protect rights. Scholars like Elizabeth Baisley and Kathleen A. Lahey have noted Swiebel's conclusion that the diversity in member states of the UN makes its policies more susceptible to conservative, traditional and religious pressures than those policies adopted by member states of the EU. Among many other contributions, she served as the chair of the Dutch Coordination of the European Women’s Lobby and on the board of the
International Archives for the Women's Movement from 2005 to 2007. The following year, she became chair of the International Gay and Lesbian Information Center and Archive, serving until 2012. Between 2013 and 2017, Swiebel was chair of the Clara Wichmann Association for Women and Law. In 2019, Swiebel was awarded the Ministry of Emancipation's Jos Brink Oeuvre Prize, for her lifetime of work on behalf of the LGBT community. ==Selected works==