EQUAL RIGHTS

Argentine Prostitutes Fight for Union

‘We consider ourselves working people.’

Elena Reynaga, the head of two of Latin America’s biggest charities that aim to help sex workers, is calling for the creation of a union for sex workers. Reynaga spent 30 years a prostitute until she left to head up Redtrasex (Latin American and Caribbean Sex Workers Network) and Anmar (Female Sex Workers’ Association of Argentina), which operates as an unofficial trade union. But Reynaga wants to take it one step further and make sex workers officially unionized. “We consider ourselves working people,” Reynaga says. “We want to get all the rights that people who work enjoy: the right to a pension, social security …” As World AIDS Day approaches on Thursday, Reynaga said she hopes a union would help combat the spread of the deadly virus amongst sex workers.