Prostitutes Accuse Police of Blackmail

Prostitutes who work the streets of the city’s red-light district have formed an organization to protest what they claim is harassment and blackmail by police officers.

The women leveled their charges against police officers at a press conference Thursday. They are part of a 70-member group dubbed “Vanguard of Free Women, Mary Magdalene” after a prostitute who, according to the New Testament of the Bible, found redemption in Jesus Christ.

The women said they want to be called “Magdalenes” because they consider their work a dignified way of making a living and because the word “prostitute” carries a stigma.

Meanwhile, police and city officials denied that the women were being harassed, saying they are frequently jailed because they break city laws prohibiting prostitution.

However, Police Chief Luis Octavio Ortega Ramirez said the Police Department’s internal affairs unit had received a formal complaint from the women and would investigate their allegations.

The women said police officers often blackmail them for up to $10 each every other night, to allow them to work. Prostitute Rosa Perez Tadeo said the women must pay the money or go to jail.

“We have been harassed a lot,” said prostitute Virginia Segura Alonso. “We’re constantly trampled, jailed and blackmailed by officers.”

The women, most of whom are young mothers from Mexico’s interior, said it is hypocritical for the city to require them to undergo monthly physical examinations at a health clinic to allow them to work, yet jail them for working.

The women said they each pay the equivalent of $13 every month for the examinations and $13 every four months for a test to determine whether they carry the virus that causes AIDS. To be allowed to work, they must carry a card from the clinic showing the dates of their examinations. Those who do not carry the card usually are jailed.

David Limn, a city attorney, said the city tries to keep the women healthy for the public good.

“But one thing is to require them to have a regular checkup and another to allow them to work the streets--that’s a violation of city laws,” he said.

Ortega said city laws prohibit prostitution practiced in city streets, but not inside private businesses, such as bars and nightclubs.

“If these women stand outside offering (themselves), they are arrested because our laws say we must do so,” Ortega said. “When they do what they do inside the bars, we can’t intervene.”

Officials with several human rights groups said city and state laws regarding prostitution are ambivalent and applied too harshly.

Ulises Silva, a lawyer for International Front for the Guarantee of Human Rights of Baja California, said prostitution should not be punished with jail time because the law specifies it as a misdemeanor that carries only a fine.

Moreover, he said, prostitution becomes a misdemeanor only when someone files a charge against the person breaking the law. According to the law, he said, police cannot detain prostitutes for standing in the streets entertaining offers.

State law, however, does punish prostitution, but only if it is conducted in a “scandalous manner,” he said. Under such a standard, he said, a quiet transaction between a prostitute and a solicitor cannot be punishable.