MEXICO CITY (CN) – Calzada de Tlalpan stretches from Mexico City’s historic center south to Estadio Banorte, formerly and still affectionately known as Estadio Azteca, which has been under renovation since May 2024 for the FIFA World Cup. The inaugural match will take place there on June 11.
On a typical weekday afternoon, the road is usually choked with cars, buses, trucks and every other vehicle under the sun. The Mexico City Metro Blue Line crosses the roadway as it peaks above ground at the San Antonio Abad station, which has been closed since March 17, along with the two neighboring stations to the south.
The Mayor of Mexico City, Clara Brugada DESIGNATED on October 5, 2024, her plan for it transform Calzada de Tlalpan with major construction projects, including an elevated walkway over the blue line and a bicycle lane leading to the stadium. Construction began a year later and is still ongoing.
Amidst the chaos of the street, sleek modern hotels stand in front of colonial houses, shops and pharmacies. Karolina Longtaim and four other sex workers stand on the street or sit on a small red sofa outside a hotel for hours near Metro San Antonio Abad, chatting with each other and laughing as cars and people pass. This scene has been like this for decades, but now heavy machinery digs up the road in front of them to make way for new construction, threatening their peace and livelihood.
Longtaim has been a street sex worker for years and is president of the Trans Sweet Collective. She says that the government has not listened to her concerns or those of her colleagues that the construction of the World Cup constitutes an erasure of her profession and of the people who work in this area in general.
Sex workers have marched multipleTIMESclosing Calzada de Tlalpan in order to express their grievances with the construction and its effect on their income. Another march is planned for March 31.
“The waterway was a surprise project for the World Cup, but no record was taken to ask the public if we agreed or not. With a project that will be funded by Mexican taxpayers, we are denouncing and exposing that these unsustainable projects have negatively affected not only working Mexicans and their finances, but also self-employed sex workers,” said the self-employed workers as.
Sex work is legal at a federal level in Mexico and is regulated at the local and state levels. Although not strictly regulated in Mexico City, it is decriminalized, meaning that neither sex workers nor clients face legal penalties for engaging in the activity.
Longtaim said the boardwalk and bike lane have worsened an already traffic nightmare, making it even harder for potential customers to see her and impacting her revenue — a complaint echoed by her colleagues.
“Only the elite, the rich and the middle class are being taken into account. Those displaced by self-employment, especially sex workers, are not being taken into account. Their livelihoods have been severely affected and we have been forced to work 24 hours, seven days a week to feed our families,” she said.
The administration of the head of government of Mexico City did not respond to requests for comment.
Another forced barrier to sex workers? With the anticipated influx of mass tourism, hotels in the area have already raised prices by more than 150%.
For sex workers who live and work in hotels or small apartments, the situation has become unsustainable.
“What we, as sex workers, are asking for is good housing, for the government to give us access to social projects and programs, and instead of the government focusing its attention on the World Cup, they could fix neighborhoods and roads for the people of Mexico. All that money they are spending on unsustainable projects would be better given to the people who work in Mexico, so that the working people of Mexico can be happy and the people who work in Mexico would be happy and the people of the world in Mexico, said Longtaim.
This month, sex workers in the city presented a formal complaint Mexico City’s Human Rights Commission, highlighting these issues.
“Now we are exposing the complete disregard of the Mexican government for sex workers, and from the head of power, they have tried to offer us an amount of money that is not enough to support our families. How can they forget that we have been a historical part of this area for more than 100 years? We have practiced sex work here and it is unacceptable that a project that aims to show the world Mexico. and misery,” said Longtaim.
Chiquis Rivera, who sat on the little red couch outside the hotel, has also been working in the area for years.
“Before the construction, we were all working well, we were doing well. We had our customers, cars could stop, people could pass more freely. Now, well, it’s harder to work, and access, coming and going, is complicated. It’s become far from a benefit,” Rivera said.
She highlighted some of the more personal, psychological concerns caused by the situation.
“In the beginning it was a significant problem, professionally, financially and psychologically, because you stay in the hotel and you don’t rest. There is noise, the noise is constant, it is 24 hours a day. There is pollution, there is dust, there is dirt and there are many workers who are always looking at us, said River. “Tell me, look, how am I supposed to work with 20 people looking at me like that? And customers won’t come because of distrust.”
She pointed out the construction across the street: tractors, bulldozers, jackhammers and unfinished concrete slabs.
“They haven’t finished those roads for two or three months. I mean, they haven’t made any progress. I mean, they’ve stopped there. Imagine if they haven’t made any progress in two or three months, how much progress will they make? It could also be a risky project because the World Cup is coming up and rushing it could lead to problems,” Rivera said.
The city government claims construction should be completed by May.
“So to be fair, I mean, let’s hope that it helps and benefits us after the World Cup too, right? But in the meantime, the truth is we’re suffering from it,” she said.
Tania Hernández has also been working in this field for years. And perhaps even bigger than the finances, she noted, working people like her are the area’s living history.
“I’ve been here for many, many years. I’ve seen a lot of things happen, and frankly, what’s happening now is very different from anything that’s happened before,” she said.
She said sex workers like her are not separate from the city the government wants to transform, but part of it and record-keepers of its tragedies.
She remembers when an earthquake-damaged building collapsed nearby, killing four people. She spoke of deaths on the subway and problems inside the overcrowded hotels where she works, problems she says will worsen the less attention the government pays to them in favor of mega projects like this one.
But it’s not all doom and gloom.
“We’ve been here for a long time. We’re here all day, every day. We sleep where we sleep and then we come here. The neighbors know us, no one wishes us ill, everyone says hello and asks how you’re doing. We tell them we’re standing firm. This is our home. We live together as a family, the family we chose, not the one we were born into,” said Hernández.
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