How Not to Photograph Sex Workers

The photographer that that left identifiable faces should be prosecuted. Perhaps that is the most telling problem: these people's rights are not enforced, because those people live on fringes of morality. Making a commercial project based on illegal footage should make it illegal. South European countries have very strong privacy rules and they are actually enforced both legally as well as socially. To have security camera you need a license, and even it's usage for prosecution is limited. On the other hand the word-policing of "prostitute" destroys the article, that very fast comes out as a moralistic piece on how prostitutes are only victims of slavery and violence. In Portugal there was recently some feministic propaganda saying "if you pay you are worth nothing" with an origami vagina on a 20 euros bank note. They basically reduced the body of these people to a 20 euro bill. I found it disgusting and other women protection victims came out saying that the campaign was in extremely bad taste and did not represent the whole spectrum of the activity. It also further stigmatized these people. Personally I found it disgusting. I program for money and often sacrifice a lot of my dignity for it. Should my activity be reduced to a caricature? Hell no.

https://www.publico.pt/2020/07/30/impar/noticia/tens-pagar-n...

These pictures are disturbing and apparently illegal (since Spanish law seems to forbid the photographing of identifiable people in public, IMNAL) but damn they struck me and left me well aware of the utter despair and loneliness of these women.

If that was the goal of the photographer: well done, despite the breach of law.

For me, as someone with little to no real live exposure to this metier, they did more to explain the desperation then anything I've seen before.

I'm sad now and will be looking for a way to... help out?