Nightclub will sign sex worker license – 07/21/2023 – Market

An agreement intermediated by the MPT (Ministério Público do Trabalho) in Campinas resulted in the formalization, last Thursday (20), of three sex workers from a nightclub in Itapira, in the interior of São Paulo.

Another ten women, who work in another house in the same municipality, should also have their work papers signed in the next few days. According to the Regional Labor Attorney’s Office, this is the first time that an agreement enables this type of recognition of employment in this activity.

The MPT of Campinas says that it cannot give more information about the case because the processes are under secrecy.

If the establishments do not comply with the agreement within 30 days, they may receive fines from R$ 2,000 per clause of the TAC (conduct adjustment term). In addition to the formalization of the workers, the owners of the houses committed themselves not to allow the permanence of minors under 18 years of age in the premises.

According to the MPT, the agreement for the registration in the portfolio began to be negotiated from an inspection carried out in the nightclubs. An anonymous complaint made through Disque 100 —a channel for anonymous complaints of cases of human rights violations— asked that suspicions of work analogous to slavery in these places be investigated.

A mobile group from the Ministry of Labor and Employment with the MPT, the Federal Police and the Federal Public Defender’s Office found, however, that the women did not live in conditions of contemporary slavery, enticement, human trafficking or sexual exploitation.

Labor attorney Andréa Tertuliano de Oliveira, who participated in the operation, said in a statement that the agreement minimizes “the vulnerability of the profession and allows for its regularization, with access to labor rights”.

For labor lawyer Ronaldo Tolentino, from the Ferraz dos Passos office, the agreement represents a break with social taboo by recognizing a profession that has existed for many years.

From a legal point of view, however, he sees a mistake in the decision. “For us to admit that there is an employer that exploits the sex profession, you go against two provisions of the penal code, which is that of exploiting houses of prostitution, and the article that deals with ruffianism”, says Tolentino.

Ruffianism is what is generally known as pimping. In the Penal Code, the activity is described in article 230, as “taking advantage of the prostitution of others, directly participating in its profits or being supported by those who exercise it”.

The lawyer also recalls the case of the exploitation of the jogo do bicho. There is no closed understanding, but on more than one occasion, the TST (Superior Labor Court) understood that there was no employment relationship between the bank and the person who worked there, since the object of the contract is illegal.

“Here the gravity is a little higher, because the animal game is a criminal misdemeanor and the sexual exploitation of a third party, a crime”, he says. “I don’t believe it’s a precedent to apply.”

Prostitution or sex work?

The MPT refers to women who now have a formal contract as sex workers, following the provisions of the Brazilian Occupation Classification.

In this list by the Ministry of Labor and Employment, from 2002, the main activity is “sex worker”, accompanied by several nomenclatures. There are call girls, harlots, messalina, hookers, women of life, prostitutes and sex workers, all described as synonyms.

“They look for sexual programs; they serve and accompany clients; they participate in educational actions in the field of sexuality. The activities are carried out following norms and procedures that minimize the vulnerabilities of the profession”, says the description of the classification.

There is no consensus, however, on the most socially appropriate terminology, since even among feminists and academics there are those who defend the existence of sex work (and therefore, this nomenclature, which would be less stigmatizing) and those who consider that the activity, in itself, is exploitative (and, therefore, failing to call it prostitution would only be a cover-up of a type of exploitation).