Sabrina Sanchez, director of 120,000 sex workers, about the EU plans and the ‘hell of Zurich’: ‘Craftsmen earn their money thanks to their hands, we thanks to our genitals’

Sabrina Sanchez, as a sex worker you offer your body for money. Why do you do that?
Sabrina Sanchez: In our capitalist system we all offer parts of our bodies. Craftsmen use their hands, we use our sexual organs and even more so our brains. It is wrong to say that only sex workers offer their bodies.

What role does the brain play in your work?
We need this especially in advertising. For example, we need to know when most visitors are on a website and when to upload which advertisements. We use a lot of brains, working with our sexual organs is only a small part.

How did you come to this work?
I have a degree in communications and speak three languages. But because I didn’t have an EU passport and couldn’t find another job after arriving in Europe from Mexico 18 years ago, I started doing sex work.

Do you only work for the money, or do you also enjoy your work?
Do you know a supermarket cashier who loves her job? In our system we simply have to choose the option that is least bad for us. To survive in the capitalist world it doesn’t matter whether you love your job or not. It is important that you make sure you can do the job safely.

It is precisely the safety and dignity of sex workers – the vast majority of whom are women – that is why the European Parliament wants to introduce a European ban on prostitution, as Sweden has had since 1999. Is that the solution?
Not at all. It is futile and a moral failure because it fails to address the social, economic and discriminatory causes that bring us to sex work in the first place. A ban deprives sex workers of their right to self-determination and drives prostitution underground.

But the Swedish government calls it a success.
What the government says is not supported by any organization that has actually done serious research. In addition to our organization, Amnesty International and Human Right Watch also speak out against a ban on prostitution.

What has to happen?
The Council of Europe follows a different model. The Human Rights Commissioner has just proposed decriminalizing prostitution, as New Zealand did 20 years ago. This also means that sex workers are increasingly consulted and involved in decision-making processes.

But there is undeniable violence against sex workers. How can you protect them against this?
Of course there can be dangerous moments. But police officers and other professionals also have to deal with violence. We need measures that are not devised by politicians, but designed in collaboration with us.

What for example?
There must be consistent compliance with existing laws that can be used to hold pimps and traffickers accountable. A law could also be drawn up classifying an attack on a sex worker as serious as an attack on a police officer.

How do you prevent customers from becoming violent?
It’s strange to think that the violence mainly comes from the customers. According to surveys among sex workers, the biggest sources of violence are more likely to be the police, authorities, doctors and teachers. These findings come from South America. We are currently conducting the same study in Europe, and the first evaluations show a similar picture.

Zurich was recently described in a report in the British Sun newspaper as “the prostitution hell of Europe”. Is it really that bad in Switzerland?
You have to look critically at reports from such tabloid media. I have a number of colleagues from Spain who work in Switzerland because they have more rights there and – because they have to register – they feel protected by the police. The only problem for my colleagues is that other women come from abroad because of the good conditions and the competitive pressure is increasing.

So Switzerland is not a prostitution hell?
Not at all. It is a very good place for this job. You can make very good money. After I get an EU passport, Switzerland will be one of my next places of work.