Independent Portugal Escorts

The Constitutional Court of Portugal ruled in early May that it was unconstitutional to criminalise some third parties who are involved in sex work. Portugal’s current law bans any form of organised sex work, including running a brothel. It is also illegal to profit from, promote, encourage or facilitate ‘prostitution’, which affects the ability of sex workers to work together and work safely.

The verdict came from a case that started in 2014, when a bar in Valpaços was investigated by the National Republican Guard. They arrested six women who allegedly did sex work on the premises and the bar owner for “encouraging six women into prostitution”. The court did not find any evidence that the women were coerced into sex work by third parties, but that they chose to do sex  work themselves “according to their own will”.

With so many stories of hardship and stalled businesses, tabloid Correio da Manhã says brothels are working at pretty much full throttle through the lockdown. ‘Madame’ Ana Loureiro – the face of a recent petition focused on legalising prostitution in Portugal – tells the paper that she did shut down her two houses at the start of the lockdown but decided to reopen one of them after the first two weeks because of the difficulties faced by her ‘girls’.

Here are some simple strategies for educating yourself, changing the conversations you have about sex workers, and generally being less of a jerk about sex work. Eighty-Five ways to make sex workers lives easier.

Ana Loureiro managed to collect the 4000 signatures required for a petition to be discussed in parliament in just 60 days. She is in favour of regulating sex work to allow brothels to operate. Though sex work is legal on Portugal, no third party is allowed to benefit or facilitate it.  she is now amassing signatures for a referendum, on the basis that the law won't change