NICARAGUA-SEX WORKERS Sex workers granted rights in Nicaragua on International Sex Workers Day

Record ID: 149870

  • Title: NICARAGUA-SEX WORKERS Sex workers granted rights in Nicaragua on International Sex Workers Day
  • Date: 3rd June 2015
  • Summary: SEX WORKERS INSIDE COURT SINGING NATIONAL ANTHEM
  • Embargoed: 18th June 2015 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Nicaragua
  • Country: Nicaragua
  • Topics: General
  • Reuters ID: LVADAMC0ESBS2ZMWMQJ3Z459B17J
  • Aspect Ratio: 16:9
  • Story Text: Nicaragua marked International Sex Workers Day on Tuesday (June 2) with a historic decision at its Supreme Court classifying sex workers as official representatives of the government and the judicial system. The acknowledgement marks a notably progressive decision for the region.
    A pilot group of 18 sex workers were provided with technical and legal training to try and manage the most common conflicts that arise in their line of work, which is often accompanied by abuse and neglect.
    According to the Latin American and Caribbean Female Sex Workers Network (RedTraSex), some 14,500 women in Nicaragua make their living in the sex trade, of which an estimated 14 percent are the beneficiary of some professional organisation. The rest operate in a legal limbo.
    The vice president of the Nicaraguan Judicial System championed the new classification in Managua.
    "We are the only country in the world that treats sex workers as 'judicial facilitators.' The only country in the world that doesn't try and arrest them, where the activity isn't criminalised. We don't put them in prison for the sexual work. There are countries close to Nicaragua in which sex workers are sought after like any other criminal so to be sent to prison," Marvin Aguilar said at the Nicaraguan Supreme Court in Managua.
    The sex workers on hand for the decision welcomed their new status. Previously, there was little the government often did for them whey sought help, they said.
    "(This classification is important) because we go to police stations (seeking) resolution or we accompany each other and we realise the situation, which is that often when sex workers show up to file a complaint, and they tell us now is not the time, that we come back another day, that the correct people who would deal with such a complaint aren't available," said Nicaraguan sex worker Imogene Omier.
    Along with the new classification programme, Nicaraguan police has also established a relationship with RedTraSex to attend to the women in sex work.
    The decision in Nicaragua comes amid a push in Central America to grant greater recognition of sex workers. A group is seeking to create a sex workers' union in Guatemala while activists are promoting laws to recognise sex workers in Costa Rica, Honduras and Panama.
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