Sex Trafficking in Argentina Now and Then (original) (raw)

Incorporating Sex Workers into the Argentine Labour Movement

Sex workers in Argentina and beyond are making their histories visible through political action, often in the face of extreme and violent repression. Alongside two first waves of sex worker organizing, a third appears to be emerging from countries in the Global South, which has largely been neglected in academic commentaries. One such organization is Asociacion de Mujeres Meretrices de la Argentina (AMMAR), the female sex workers’ association of Argentina. This essay draws on questionnaire data, participant observation, and in-depth interviews with union and nonunion sex workers and members of the Central de Trabajadores Argentinos (CTA), the umbrella federation of which they are a part, across ten cities in Argentina. It traces the relationship between AMMAR and the CTA to examine how the two organizations have worked together to organize workers in an infamously exploitative, precarious, and vulnerable labor sector to achieve social and political change. The essay contributes to debates about the regeneration of the trade union movement and challenges the reigning wisdom that sex workers and trade unions are unlikely partners.

Border lives: Prostitute women in Tijuana

1999

While we too could say "doubt exists" about our focus and our data, we hope that paper will supplement the theoretical picture drawn by Chancer with respect to the ambivalence about serious sociological study of prostitution in the U.S. academy, and also contribute towards an interdisciplinary conversation about the social construction of prostitution in the specific border city of Tijuana, Mexico. In the latter respect we also respond to a call by Uribe et al. for more multidisciplinary study of prostitution in Mexico: "son pocas las investigaciones publicadas que pueden contribuir a ampliar el conocimiento sobre los grupos que ejercen la prostituci6n; tambien son limitados los trabajos con enfoques multidisciplinarios que manejen el fen6meno desde la perspectiva epidemiol6gica, biomedica, etnognifica, antropol6gica, socioecon6mica o cultural" 'there is little published research that can contribute to expanding knowledge about the groups engaged in prostitution; there is also limited work with an interdisciplinary focus which deals with the phenomenon from an epidemiological, biomedical, ethnographic, anthropological, socioeconomic, or cultural perspective' (Uribe et al. 1996, 185). Discussions about sex workers in Mexico range from historical studies like those of Gonzalez Rodriguez (1989) or Xorge del Campo (1974), to published memoirs or testimonios of women who worked in prostitution such as Mui'i.uzuri's Memorias de la Bandida (1967) and Antonia Mora's De oficio (1972), to studies of attitudes towards prostitution and of the relationship between prostitution and society by culture critics like Carlos Monsiv:iis (1977, 1981) and Jose Joaquin Blanco (1981). 4 In addition to these types of popular-culture materials on prostitution, there is also a body of professional studies on women who work in "el ambiente" in Mexico. Current studies in this field tend to one of four types: historical, sociological, medical, and legal. Uribe et al. find that investigators associated with the area of public health have greater and more reliable access to women working in prostitution in Mexico than people in other academic specialities, thus ameliorating the kind of distrust between sex workers and academic investigators Chancer and Chapkis, among others, point to as a persistent problem in this kind of

Trafficking in Women and Children for the Sex Trade: Reflections from a Latin American Human Rights Feminist

Canadian Woman Studies, 2003

Cet article examine le trajc desfemmes et des enfants dans l 'industrie du sexe en Amirique Latine. Elle assure que fes inititatives anti-trafic dam cette rPgion hivent &re faites dans une approche contextuelfe tenant cornpte des facteurs strurturels tconomiques, sociaux, culturefs, sexuefs etpo fitiques fits L ? cette fifonie internationale, ses causes et ses consiquences et lafaFon dontlesfemmes y participent. L kuteure souligne en particulier, le besoin d'enqu8ter sur les consiquences des abus sexuels chez les enfants en relation avec le trajc des femmes et desjfles, avant de dtbattre de la question du consentement.

Sexual activism and ‘actually existing eroticism’: The politics of victimization and ‘lynching’ in Argentina

International Sociology

Focusing on the case of Argentina, this text discusses two issues. The first refers to the tension between progress in feminist and LGBTIQ+ politics, on the one hand, and erotic-affective practices, that is, ‘actually existing eroticism,’ on the other hand. This tension is analyzed on two levels: first, through the construction of identities, theoretical perspectives, and political strategies in the sex-gender arena from a stance of victimization; and second, through examining new ‘normativities’ that resulted from the achievements by feminist and LGBTIQ+ movements in transforming their demands into laws and policies. The second issue calls attention to a particular form of political action: public shaming and what the authors refer to here as ‘lynching,’ which describes extreme methods of a sexual politics of victimization in a context of neoliberal governance.