Sex workers across Argentina held demonstrations and work stoppages on Tuesday, Nov. 3, demanding greater safety and an end to clandestine working conditions. The action was called by Ammar, the Argentine Association of Women Sex Workers, after five femicides this semester, four of them last month.

Among the victims was 27-year-old Tatiana Fernández, whose body was found in an apartment in Buenos Aires’ Retiro neighborhood on Oct. 25. Police later arrested 28-year-old Renato Iván Tabella, who was also being investigated in connection with the killing of 29-year-old Daniela Villalba in Córdoba. Both women were sex workers.

Two other women were killed in Rosario: 30-year-old Débora Bordón, who was stabbed to death in August, and Bárbara Camila Aragón, whose body was found at a boarding house on Oct. 11. Men identified as clients were arrested in both cases. On Oct. 8, 36-year-old Paola Vallejos was found dead in the coastal city of Costa Azul.

“We want to make visible the precarious conditions in which we do our work,” Ammar national secretary Georgina Orellano told Radio con Vos. “We are also demanding recognition that the lives of sex workers matter.”

Organizers urged women not to work on Tuesday. Because sex work is not regulated, the number of participants is unknown. In some parts of the country, women joined online actions, temporarily stopping work on websites or posting messages and hashtags.

A symbol of the protests circulating on social media features a high-heeled shoe alongside the slogan “Ni Una Menos” (“Not One Less”), associated with anti-femicide demonstrations in Argentina since 2015. Some versions adapted the phrase to read “Ni Una Puta Menos” or “Ni Una Trabajadora Sexual Menos.” Other activists gathered outside Congress in Buenos Aires with signs and megaphones, calling for stronger legal protections.

Individual prostitution is not a crime in Argentina, but pimping and arranging sex work are illegal. As a result, sex workers lack labor-market regulation and access to benefits such as pensions and unemployment insurance. Ammar says this leaves women more exposed to danger, including pressure to accept higher-paying but risky work, such as going to the homes of men they do not know. Three of the women killed in recent months died while meeting clients.

The association also says sex workers are frequent targets of police action. In 2020, it organized protests in Buenos Aires against the closure of motels and called for police raids at sex-work locations to end.

Since Sept. 23, Argentina’s Chamber of Deputies has been reviewing a bill to ban establishments involved in “sexual exploitation” nationwide. The proposal has renewed debate between abolitionist groups, which view all prostitution as a form of violence, and organizations such as Ammar, which support regulating sex work as a profession to protect those who do it.

Sources: Folha Mundo.