(In)Visible Women

Urban vulnerability, organizations and public policies on behalf of prostitutes amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

Abstract

Bringing prostitution to the urban agenda seems to be a controversial theme in the frequent discussions that mobilize the organizations of cities. However, it cannot be denied that streets and even entire districts act as a scenario for the spectacularizations of sex work, where prostitutes are assisted by the coded territorial identity of their stigmatized presences in the territories. Not really, the performaces of their protagonists give them rights to citizenship. Feminist initiatives try to overthrow the dogmas instituted for them a long time ago; and its reflexes contribute so that, in emergency occasions, such as the pandemic outbreak of the coronavirus, the prostitutional category is supported. At the same time, the resistant militancy, the strengthening of organizations and female leaders, fight for public policies and government measures aimed at the prostitutional class to overcome moments like this. In this regard, this paper verifies the motions and measures filed and suggested in the extinct Ministry of Labor and Ministry of Justice and in the current Ministry of Women, Family and Human Rights of Brazil (MMFDH), which supported the fight against Covid-19 in urban prostitutional spaces.