A Salvadoran sex worker looks at the phone screen while waiting for clients in a street sex bar in San Salvador, El Salvador, 12 April 2018. Although prostitution is not legal in El Salvador, dozens of street sex workers, wearing provocative miniskirts, hang out in the dirty streets close to the capital’s historic center. Sex workers of all ages are seen on the streets but a significant part of them are single mothers abandoned by their male partners. Due to the absence of state social...
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A Salvadoran sex worker looks at the phone screen while waiting for clients in a street sex bar in San Salvador, El Salvador, 12 April 2018. Although prostitution is not legal in El Salvador, dozens of street sex workers, wearing provocative miniskirts, hang out in the dirty streets close to the capital’s historic center. Sex workers of all ages are seen on the streets but a significant part of them are single mothers abandoned by their male partners. Due to the absence of state social programs, they often seek solutions to their economic problems in sex work. The environment of street sex business is strongly competitive and dangerous, closely tied to the criminal networks (street gangs) that demand extortion payments. Therefore, sex workers employ any tool at their disposal to struggle hard, either with their fellow workers, with violent clients or with gang members who operate in the harsh world of street prostitution.
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