Sex-Trade Advertising: Don't Ply For Me, Argentina

A surprise ban on print and internet ads for escort services is being lambasted by sex workers and legislators in Argentina as counterproductive to the new presidential order's proclaimed aim to combat the sexual exploitation of women. The edict, which goes into effect on July 18, represents "a giant step forward in the defense of women," said President Cristina Fernández, when she announced it last week. The ban will also block internet sites offering escort services. "We are going to move against sex ads on the internet, there are pages that will be deactivated," said the Minister of Justice, Julio César Alak.

But sex workers here disagree. "Banning the ads only drives us further into the hands of pimps and brothel-owners," says Jorgelina Sosa, a representative of AMMAR (the Spanish acronym for The Argentine Association of Women Prostitutes), a long-established group with 4,000 members that had been working with legislators here on a policy to protect sex workers from the kind of exploitation the ban is meant to discourage. "We are extremely upset," says Sosa. "We are being flooded with desperate calls from women asking us how they are expected to continue working. This ban will deliver these independent-working women straight into the hands of the mafia rings."

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