“We did All the Work for You”: Sex Work in Argentina in Pandemic Times

Abstract

How did the first months of the COVID-19 pandemic impact on sex workers? In different parts of the world, journalistic accounts have described how urban circulation restrictions and the risks of contagion left sex workers even more invisible than usual to government emergency aid programs and even more vulnerable than usual to police abuse and criminalization. This chapter presents a closer look at the initiatives of a trade union of sex workers in Buenos Aires during first six months of the lockdown. The intention is to focus on the reaction of organized sex workers to the sanitary emergency in light of their recent history. The shift in the meanings of work over the last decades of Argentina?s history has influenced the organization of sex workers, their position within the feminist field, and how they participate in the broader social organization of workers. For unionized prostitutes, the pandemic opened up a window to establish networks with the national state and to strengthen their historical demand for recognition as workers.