As of Wednesday morning, Bolivia's "night workers" are on strike. Up to 35, prostitutes across the country have refused to report for the medical checkups required every 20 days to legally work the streets. By continuing to serve clients without ensuring they're disease-free, the sex workers' action raises the risk to public health. It comes in response to attacks in the city of El Alto last week in which citizens burned brothels and beat sex workers in protest against legal prostitution.
The rampage began after citizens demanded that brothels and bars be located at least 3, feet away from schools. Within 48 hours, angry mobs had taken matters into their own hands, burning more than 30 establishments. Hundreds of women and transvestites were forced to strip while their belongings were torched; dozens were beaten and mutilated as the police stood by and watched. The municipal government responded by closing all brothels within 1, feet of schools, but took no action against those who had attacked the prostitutes.
Left to work in the streets rather than in the relatively safety of the brothels, the sex workers have since become victims of police harassment, including physical abuse and arrest threats.
The police have refused to comment on these actions. The latest violence against Bolivia's sex workers is not surprising. Although the Supreme Court in legalized prostitution, which is widely practiced nationwide, the oldest profession has not gained the relative social acceptance it enjoys in some European countries. Instead, women and men in the sex industry have become scapegoats for everything from broken homes to the rising HIV-infection rate.
Indeed, the Supreme Court ruling requires that the Ministry of Health take full responsibility for the sex workers' safety and medical services. But the government has turned a blind eye to the recent events in El Alto, and has ignored the demands of the prostitutes. That, says the union, has left its members no option but to put their clients' health at risk until their security is guaranteed.
