Digital rights of Uruguayan sex workers

Despite some omissions and problematic aspects, Uruguay has laws that could ensure a safe, violence-free experience for sex workers using technology. To begin with, Uruguay regulated prostitution as work in 2002, making it the only country in Latin America to have done so. Additionally, Uruguay has a personal data protection law, passed in 2008, that promotes a human rights perspective. The country also has a 2017 law on gender-based violence against women that includes a specific article on non-consensual dissemination of intimate images.

However, the government’s lack of resources for implementation and enforcement, as well as sex workers’ absence from decision-making spaces in state, private and civil society spheres, leave those who engage in sex work in a vulnerable situation. Among other things, they lack minimum security and privacy protections when using technology daily. This research, led by sex workers in collaboration with feminist academics, identified the challenges and opportunities they face, as well as the safety and self-care strategies they develop individually and collectively.

Having sex workers lead every stage of the research project ensured that their perspective on their problems and needs was upheld and that an atmosphere of equality and trust was established. At the same time, we tried to keep an epistemological distance to maintain a critical view of the issues and problematise the participants’ assumptions. This also helped us avoid romanticising subaltern knowledge and experiences, as Donna Haraway cautions. There was also a learning curve in training the interviewers (most of whom were sex workers themselves), recruiting the interviewees, conducting fieldwork and coordinating the project.

Rather than being neutral, our team takes sides and aims to influence the country’s regulatory framework and national and departmental public policies from the perspective of sex workers’ rights, respecting their decisions as adults. We finish our report with concrete suggestions for interventions at the state, private and civil society levels to improve their working and living conditions.