I was 25 years old
and I needed to go back to work.
I had a son to feed and a rent to pay.
I had accepted the offer from a client
for an administrative position in a metallurgical factory.
I felt like that I would be able to leave my old job behind.
That job I felt so ashamed for,
trying to hide it in a thousand ways.
I arrived at the office just as always.
On this occasion, my boss asked me to make coffee for 40 people.
So I went to the kitchen, I made the coffee,
I served it in cups, I divided them in groups of ten,
I put them on a tray and I headed for the meeting room.
In the room there was a huge black table.
It was full of men; the only woman was me.
The first person I served the coffee to was my boss
and when I tried to serve the rest,
my boss grabbed me strongly by the arm and in front of everyone he yelled:
“This coffee is cold, go, go, go, go.
Go and prepare everything again.”
There, in front of everybody’s silence,
I felt so embarrassed, that the only thing I could do
was to grab the tray, bow my head and leave.
In the kitchen, while chewing anger,
I realized that this work wasn’t for me.
“If he shouts at me in front of everyone again,
I throw the boiling coffee over him and I leave,” I thought.
And then I felt inside of me that my old job,
the one many people had made me believe
I had to feel shame for, wasn’t so bad.
I could put my limits there, I could put my conditions.
I could say no there.
So I made a decision and I came back.
I became a prostitute again.
I had the certainty that, being a woman,
part of the working class,
that represented the best option for me.
I stopped living it as something clandestine.
I didn’t have to leave my house in sweat pants
to dress up and make up on my way to work.
However there was still something missing,
I needed to have enough courage
to tell my mom and my son,
what I was doing.
At work, every day is different.
I arrive to the street corner, I greet my coworkers.
Because we don’t work alone, we are always in twos or threes,
as a way to protect ourselves.
We tell one another when we arrive, when we leave and when we come back.
We advise on the traits each client has
and we have a code: we don’t serve people
that don’t meet the standards we define.
There, standing there in the corner,
I stay staring firmly at each cars that passes
in search of some sign of a future client.
But other times, I arrange the meetings in advance.
But not all the people who do sex work
decide to work on public spaces.
Many of my mates decide to work through social media,
in private apartments or, many others also,
advertise their services in websites.
A long time ago we had a problem with a guy
that turned into a nightmare:
he threatened us, harassed us, he was totally obsessed.
And you know why?
Because we refuse to serve him
since he didn’t meet our standards with one of our coworkers.
And as revenge, face to our feminist sorority,
he had no better idea than to become a member of the neighborhood board.
And in a very short time he managed to convince the rest of the neighbors
to get us out of the neighborhood.
That was the first time that we felt the need to ask for help,
of having to go to a State facility and denounce the actions
of that neighbor and also the discrimination that we suffered
by some people in the neighborhood.
This is how my activism began.
But a long time had to pass
before I could identify myself as a unionized sex worker.
In AMMAR, the Association of Women Sex Workers of Argentina,
I learned a lot of things.
I learned that we are not alone
even though the State ignores us.
I learned that my work is not a crime
and that I have the right to do a responsible use of public space
without having to pay the police
to let us work.
(Applause)
I learned that most problems
that we women sex workers have,
are the same ones all working women have
for being born in this macho and patriarchal society.
(Applause)
I understood that we still have to join forces
to continue raising the awareness of a large portion of society,
so that they can tell between the crime of human trafficking
and the free practice of sex work.
(Applause)
Because just like my colleagues and me defend every day
the free choice we have about our own bodies,
we condemn human trafficking but not only in the sexual market,
also in other labor markets
like rural work and textile work.
(Applause)
This life path faced me with great challenges.
Not only did I have to learn to support and lead my partners in fight,
I also had to face my own fears.
The biggest one: having to sit and tell my mom
that I wasn’t really an administrative employee,
but a sex worker.
I was very scared.
I thought she was going to be mad at me,
that she would never talk to me again,
that she would even exclude me from my own family circle.
But I was wrong.
My mom could see beyond the stereotype
that society usually imposes on sex workers,
that which places us as bad women,
bad mothers, and night women.
My mom didn’t feel pity for me, neither considered me a victim.
She accepted me as I was, as I am,
a proudly hard-working woman,
a sex worker.
(Applause)
Telling my son was another story.
At that point, I wasn’t afraid anymore, I just had to be careful with words.
Santino lives it naturally.
So much, that on one occasion,
in a task he had been given at school
they had to draw what mom and dad work on.
And Santino drew me in the corner of the street in front of a car.
And it went much further, he confessed to the teacher
and his other classmates
that his mother was engaged in sex work.
The teacher, mouth open in front to such a big confession,
interrupted him and said:
“You’re wrong, Santino.
Your mom is a social worker.”
(Laughter)
And such was his frustration that the next day
I was called by the school manager.
And there I went. I was furious, without sleep, willing to do everything.
Ready to denounce the school, the principal and the teacher,
for discrimination and who knows how many more things.
But I had to put back again
each of my prejudices in my pocket,
since both the director and the teacher
made themselves available to me and my son.
We are not used to receive that kind of treatment.
Life has hit us so much,
that we are always distrustful and we are defensive,
because that is our defense mechanism
to survive the social stigma.
Sex workers would like to live
in a society that doesn’t judge them, that doesn’t question them,
doesn’t punish or condemn them.
An egalitarian society where we can have access to rights
such as a medical insurance and a retirement.
Where we don’t have to go to jail for the mere fact of going to work,
a society that doesn’t throw at us the sexual prejudices others have,
a society where they stop seeing us as victims
and start to take us as women with rights.
(Applause)
A society that stops comparing human trafficking to sex work,
thus making invisible a whole group
and condemning us to have to work in greater secrecy;
a society that stops questioning us
and starts accepting our work just like the rest.
We are women, we are mothers, we are sex workers.
We want to be free,
to be able to decide about our own bodies.
We want to be free to be able to be what we really want to be,
but with access to rights.
And we are walking the path to that egalitarian society.
A few months ago, my son Santino told me after school
that one of his friends wanted to mock him in front of the rest and said:
“Santino’s mom is a whore.”
On tenterhooks, I asked:
“What did you answer?”
But he calmly said:
“I told him that my mom is not a whore.
I told him that my mom is the General Secretary
of all the whores in the country.”
(Applause)
Thank you.
”
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