Sex workers face economic uncertainty amid the COVID-19 pandemic

Every night before going out, Jessica puts her trust in God, smokes a cigarette, says goodbye to her seven Chihuahuas and her mother, and goes to the corner of Francisco Olaguibel and Tlalpan, where she works as a sex worker .

Although she has been in the business for 15 years as a transgender person, she had left it last year to focus on a relationship that did not work out. When she came back, in early April, she had to face the lack of clients due to the COVID-19 pandemic but that did not stop her from working.

“There is no pandemic for us; there is no pandemic for sex work, we are still standing in the streets, working, or trying to work; the truth is the number of clients has been reduced from 100% to 30%, but we work every day; I eat every day,” she told EL UNIVERSAL.

Jessica also works at the organization called National Political Trans Agenda that was founded by her friend Érika Ivonne and that gives support to her colleagues.

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During these months, they have been able to distribute cards with economic support for sex workers and deliver 60 weekly aid boxes with food to help them cope with the crisis , especially those who are mothers.

During the day, Jessica is focused on her duties at the organization and by night, she is a sex worker . Her rates go from MXN $200 for oral sex to MXN $500 for full service, which includes oral sex, penetration, and taking off her clothes a bit.

Sex workers face economic uncertainty amid the COVID-19 pandemic

Prices vary according to the client’s requirements; she also works online

“There are clients who only come for sex, others come for drugs, others just want to talk. A good night is sometimes provided for by a person who takes drugs because they take longer; they might give you MXN $4,000 or $5,000. A bad night is like today with the contingency when there’s nothing. A bad night is when you go back home without a peso.”

In the four hours she spends at that corner, Jessica can serve from four to five customers. When they do not have money for a hotel, she takes care of them in her car. Hotels are open now, but in previous months she had to use a room a friend lent her.

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Complaints

She stopped being a sex worker only because her partner asked her.

They spent five years together but she spent the last one to work at a greengrocers; however, his complaints and vices began to affect her and they broke up. When we visited her for the first time, it had been five days since she “had returned to the streets.”

“They are jealous of you being with another person; you tell them it’s your work but you put in their shows and feel it must be disturbing, but they have to put up with it or that’s it. I tried to exchange the street for being with him and he didn’t appreciate it, so I came back to the street; I know this helps me eat and to have a good life; I don’t depend on anyone,” she asserts.

Sex workers face economic uncertainty amid the COVID-19 pandemic

Despite the tough effects of the COVID-19 pandemic in her trade, Jessica keeps on dreaming about being able to buy an apartment one day and perhaps getting a lipo.

Meanwhile, she splits her day at that building at which, during the morning, she takes care of her mother and dogs, in the afternoon, she helps other sex workers, and by night, she goes to the corner full of cars and trains.

Sex workers

in Latin America and the Caribbean have had the experience of dealing with STDs and they are aware they have been trained for decades to fend for their health. Now, COVID-19 has become their latest challenge.

These women have suffered the economic impact of the pandemic as their work is linked to bars, hotels, and other places where they usually work, including the streets that were empty for months due to the health emergency.

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“We are trained to face the conditions and consequences involved in scenarios such as a pandemic ,” said the Buenos-Aires-based organization Network of Female Sex Workers of Latin America and the Caribbean (REDTRASEX) that comprised associations from 14 countries.

“We have learned how to take care and defend ourselves and now that we’re facing a global crisis due to COVID-19, we are using the experience we already have on the particularities of this phenomenon,” it added.

Their goal is to design “specific prevention tools to keep doing what we’ve done for decades: surviving a pandemic, yet another, since stigmas and discrimination have always trained us to survive,” it stressed.

Economic impact

An indirect consequence of COVID-19 was the economic impact for thousands of women who work at an informal trade with no legal recognition.

“We are very bad due to coronavirus. This work is done with the body, with the genitals, and women are very affected; they cannot go out to work,” asserted Argentine Elena Reynaga, REDTRASEX’s executive secretary.

“Some of them need to go out to work. Almost 89% of sex workers in Latin America and the Caribbean provide for their homes,” asserted Reynaga to this newspaper.

“They are having a very bad time. The virus evidenced the harm of clandestinity in which we’re immersed without regulations,” said Reynaga, who was a sex worker for 30 years.

“The disease set a before and an after for us in Latin America and the Caribean, where sex work is not punished but is not regulated either and exposed the social inequality, the government’s hypocrisy, and a society that keeps ignoring our work,” she said.

For Nicaraguan sex worker María Elena Dávila, who is 57 years old and a member of the group Nicaragua’s Sunflowers under REDTRASEX, the disease “unmakes” the reality of their social conditions being undignified.

“No one was prepared for this harsh reality. Work is at its minimum due to the confinement. If you isolate yourself, how will you feed your family?” said Dávila.

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“We suffer even for face masks,” said Colombian Fidelia Suárez, who has been a sex worker for 30 years and who is the president of Colombia’s Sex Workers Union under the Network.

Regarding the recommendation to stay home, she said “Yes, I stay home, but my children have nothing to eat. Who will pay my rent? Nothing’s going to be a present.”

mp