They work hard for the money, so you better treat them right

It comes as a surprise to many that prostitutes in Mexico City are unionized, and — while street walking isn’t legal — is tolerated. While some of that may have to do with the Catholic sense of humanity as a community of imperfect humans (as opposed to the puritanical north where every individual imperfection is seen as a sin to be stamped out), there’s a political and social difference between Mexico and the United States that’s overlooked. The single most important change the Revolution made for urban dwellers was the legal right of workers to organize for their collective benefits. Catholic priests — as workers — were able to go on strike in 1924 eventually forcing the State to take a “kinder gentler” of anti-clerical provisions in the 1917 Constitution. And prostitutes — the unionized ones anyway — have been collectively bargaining for some time.

The second surprising thing is that support for the prostitutes comes not from some “libertarian” group (the big-L “Libertarian” political party is unknown in Mexico, and, if known at all, is seen as a cranky bunch of right-wing anararchists, or an oddball offshoot of Fascist movements like the Synarchists), but from the labor-left parties. And the feminists. Jesusa Rodriguez, the actress and feminist organizer, has been quite active working with prostitutes, and was the go-between when the sex workers pushed the Lopez Obrador administration to provide some social services to their workers.

Besides, every women in the world owes a tremendous debt to Mexico City’s prostitutes. Before the clinical trials of “the pill” — which changed every woman’s life, and did more to improve women’s health in the 20th century than anything else — were scheduled in Puerto Rico, Russell Marker could not get funding from the pharmaceutical companies, and to test the wonder formula (based on a Huastaca folk remedy for avoiding unwanted pregnancy), turned to the City’s working girls.

Drug companies still do depend on the city’s prostitutes to test birth control devices and pharmaceutals, AIDS prevention strategies and treatments for sexually transmitted diseases. I knew the Mexican Human Resources director at one of the large European pharamceutical companies. Working out an agreement every year with the sex worker’s union was just part of the job… the workers mostly got medical and dental care through the company in exchange for their cooperation.

The big problem for the sex workers now is that while prostitution itself is not illegal, the workers are a target for police looking to make an easy arrest (or solicit … a bribe) since the nature of their work forces them to skirt the laws in other ways. Or, they are abused by pimps, and work in dangerous conditions, without much recourse to the normal (and minimal) protections other Mexican workers enjoy.

So… it’s no surprise the sex workers have been lobbying for better legal protections, and are likely to get it. My translation is from an article by Luis Velázquez in the 24 June 2008 Milenio:

The PRD plans to re-introduce a bill aimed at ending exploitation or extortion of sex workers by pimps and police officer to the Federal District Legislative Assembly during the extraordinary July session.

However, the joint commissions do not expect enactment of new regulations before the next ordinary session begins in September, since they have yet to hear from the Assembly’s Public Safety Commission.

Juan Bustos, president of the Human Rights Commission, and Daniel Ordóñez, of the Legal Affairs Commission (both PRD) said that regularizing prostitution is an urgent priority. According to UNAM researchers, there are approximately 200,000 commercial sex workers in the Federal District, and four and a half million clients for their services.

At a meeting of the Federal District’s Council for the Prevention and Erradication of Discrimination, the PRD members promised to bring a bill to the floor the next few weeks, and to bring the matter up for a vote within the Extraordinary July session. .

A bill to regularize prostitution in the Federal District had been formally presented to the District Assembly at the end of October 2007 by Juan Bustos and PRD leader and Governance Commmission chair Víctor Hugo Círigo. However, due to inter-party difference, the matter was never brought to a vote.

Since then, sex worker organizations have intensely lobbied their local legislators to make the bill a priority.

Within the Assembly, PAN opposes the bill on the grounds that it legalizes street walking.

Carmen Segura, local PAN deputy, and president of the Public Security Commission, however, is meeting with various local government officials about the proposed legislation, and is compiling data on the issue.