OAS Creates New Position on Prostitute Rights

By | August 15, 2024

Gloria Careaga Pérez and Sec-Gen Luis Almagro

WASHINGTON, D.C. August 16 (C-Fam) The Secretary-General of the Organization of American States (OAS) announced the appointment of a lesbian activist to the newly-created position of OAS Commissioner for the Rights of Sex Workers.

Gloria Careaga Pérez, a Mexican social psychologist, was formerly co-Secretary General of the International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association (ILGA).  She has had a lengthy history of lesbian and LGBT activism in addition to her academic career, which focused on sexuality and gender studies.

The topic of prostitution, including the use of phrases like “sex work,” remains controversial in international institutions.  Recently, the UN Special Rapporteur on violence against women and girls, Reem Alsalem of Jordan, published a report strongly condemning the practice and promotion of prostitution and advocating for its abolition.  In contrast, the South African Dr. Tlaleng Mofokeng, UN Special Rapporteur on the right to health, is an outspoken proponent of prostitution, saying that it can be “affirming” and encouraging adolescent girls to consider it as a legitimate form of work.

This issue, like that of pornography and transgenderism, is one that divides feminist groups that agree on issues like abortion.

The OAS Secretary-General, Luis Almagro of Uruguay, has previously signaled his support for the normalization of prostitution by signing a cooperation agreement with representatives of the LGBTTTI and Sex Workers Coalition of Latin America and the Caribbean in February 2022.  It was described as “yet another tool for the advancement of the human rights of LGBTI persons and sex workers in the Americas.”

In June, Almagro and other OAS officials held a meeting with civil society representatives which included a presentation by a self-described “sex worker” from Paraguay.   She finished with a specific request: “that this Assembly immediately create a rapporteurship to promote, through research and evidence gathering, the drafting of necessary resolutions to eradicate the violation of human rights of people who engage in sex work.”

Less than two months later, this request has been granted.  It is clear from the title of the rapporteurship that its purpose is to normalize prostitution, not to support the human rights of exploited people by criminalizing the purchasing of sex acts and providing opportunities for formerly prostituted individuals to exit the practice.

Commissioner Careaga affirmed that “sex work is a job that can be recognized as being as worthy as any other and this must be our task.”

In 2023, Careaga added her signature to a joint letter condemning Alsalem for her “anti-trans” defense of biological sex.  Multiple “sex work” advocacy groups were among the signatories.  When Alsalem published her paper criticizing prostitution in June, Careaga took to Twitter to share a response from the Latin American “sex worker” advocacy group RedTraSex.  The statement denounced both the report and the process by which it was published.

RedTraSex released a statement congratulating Careaga for her appointment to the new rapporteurship, calling it a “huge step forward” but also warning that controversy was likely to follow: “We know that the mandate of the current Secretary-General is nearing its end, and that it will be a challenge to maintain this figure with the next Secretariat-General.”

Almagro’s current term—his second as Secretary-General of the OAS—will end in May 2025.

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