The Freedom Group

‘Las trabajadoras sexuales no agachamos más la cabeza. Algunos dicen que ejercer el trabajo sexual no es digno. Nosotras les decimos que indignas son las condiciones en las que tenemos que ejercer el trabajo sexual.’ Elena Reynaga, Secretaria General RedTraSex XVII Conferencia Mundial de SIDA Ciudad de México, Agosto, 2008 The “Freedom” Group: Female Sex Workers in Cochabamba, Bolivia” INTRO Bolivia, 2011. The project aims at according visibilization to both sex work (SW) and female sex workers (FSW), in order to stimulate critical debate around the theme. The invisibilisation and the ignorance concerning FSW’s life and working conditions is directly linked to the reproduction of prejudices, stigma, discrimination, stereotypes, marginalisation, violence, precariousness, lack of a proper legal protecting mechanism (human rights, women’s rights, labour rights, etc.). This work has developed between the months of January and June 2011, in the city of Cochabamba, Bolivia. The work documents, in particular, a specific group of FSW, those who back in the 90s formed the group called “Freedom”; in 2009 this historic group incorporates itself in the “ONAEM” (National Organisation for Women’s Emancipation), which represents today the network of organised FSW in Bolivia (and composed entirely by FSW), born to defend and promote rights for the whole sector.