Sex workers claim police harassment

WOMEN sex workers from the association “Panamanian Women with Dignity and Rights” (MDDP) were harassed and illegally detained on Sunday, Nov. 15  when distributing  condoms and information leaflets on a street in Panama City, the organization reported on Tuesday.

The women were arrested  in an “arbitrary” wayon  Avenida Mexico and moved “violently” to the police station in San Miguel, where they were detained “several hours,” the association said in an official statement.

Thanks to the “insistence of lawyers and other human rights activists,” the sex workers were released late at night because the “night court” could not charge them  said the MDDP.

Prostitution is not  illegal in Panama,  but the Criminal Code  includes penalties of four to six years in prison for pimping

The MDDP association, was created in 2009, to fight  for the rights of sex workers. In  July  it denounced police to who detained a prostitute, eight months pregnant   and kept her with  hands and feet handcuffed for more than 18 hours.

“We are not only sex workers are mothers, we are sisters, we are friends, we are professional, we are entrepreneurs, but especially us women with dignity,” said the organization’s president, Gladys Murillo.