The Dominican Republic and beyond: Sex Workers must be heard

Bitch, this is what you’re good for.” These were the words spoken by a police officer just before he raped a sex worker in the Dominican Republic. The routine rape, beating and humiliation – sometimes at gunpoint – of sex workers by police in the Dominican Republic is deemed to be so widespread that it is considered an epidemic. The intensity of violence is so severe that Amnesty International classes it as ‘gender-based torture’.  
Transgender sex workers are particularly vulnerable to abuse, as there is, of course, added transphobia on top of the pervasive misogyny that already exists. For a woman to press charges against a rapist is universally acknowledged to be extremely challenging; police brutality is also something that in the 21st century we’re acutely aware of. Add to these two challenges the social stigma that surrounds sex work and it’s not difficult to imagine how rare it is for the accusations of these women to be taken seriously.
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They’re trying to stand up to a supposed ‘justice system’ in a situation where it is all too possible that the very officer they have to report the crime to is the one who committed the crime in the first place. Even without this possibility, the nature of their occupation means that they are often treated as though they were ‘asking for’ rape, shifting the blame onto the victim, rather than holding the criminal accountable.