translated from Spanish: The stigma against sex workers about the questioned video of truckers’ stoppage

In the midst of the stoppage of truckers affecting the entire population in times of serious and uncertain health crisis, and the scandal over the video where you could see an overnight party, Fundación Margin for Support and Promotion of Women, member of the Network of Women Sex Workers of Latin America and the Caribbean, Redtrasex, report witnessing not only the transgression of the rule of law in our country , but also of the “extreme violation of the rights of sex worker women who have been violently exposed in a controversial nightly demonstration of unemployed drivers,” they expressed through a statement.
“Citizenship in general, the media, political leaders and opinion leaders, including various allies of our cause, have expressed troubling expressions that reinforce stigma and social discrimination towards sex worker women through terms such as “disgusting,” “outrageous,” “aberrant,” “lack of elegance, and “prostitute terrorists,” among many others, who are not read only as legitimate rejection of truckers’ mobilization. , which we also criticize, but as expressions of unfortunate stigma, discrimination and misinformation about sex work in Chile,” they added.
In this sense, during these months of national and international pandemic, the group has deployed all its forces to help the most underdoged and precarious women, many of them heads of households and mothers, carrying out solidarity campaigns, delivering food and personal grooming tools.
“Sex worker women are not complicit in violent and unjust demonstrations such as truckers’ unemployment, but a contribution to tireless struggles for labour, social and sexual rights, making an active contribution to Chile’s urgent sexual health policies. We regret being exposed – once again – to public scorn. We are not objects, nor grounds for mockery, we are citizens with rights,” the communiqué continues.
Finally, the group expresses its solidarity with the exposed workers and invites citizens to “learn more comprehensively about sex work and the media to provide information that does not promote prejudice and stigma about sex work in Chile”.

Original source in Spanish