A safe space for former sex workers
Marbella Aguilar keeps her collection of used books tucked into a hidden shelf in her room at Casa Xochiquetzal, a big yellow colonial house in the heart of Mexico City’s bustling downtown.
“I love reading and writing,” said Aguilar, 61. “Poetry, prose, anything. I can’t go to sleep without my books next to me.” She mentions Les Misérables and Lolita and the works of Pablo Neruda and Leo Tolstoy.
But her own experiences could fill a book because she has not had an ordinary life. And Casa Xochiquetzal is no ordinary house: It is a shelter for retired or semi-retired sex workers.
Casa Xochiquetzal, named after the Aztec goddess of beauty and sexual love, opened its doors in 2006 after Carmen Munoz, a former sex workers, discovered some of her former colleagues sleeping under cardboard in La Merced, a popular red-light district nearby. After a lifetime spent working the streets, the women were destitute and alone, and had nowhere to go.
Munoz took them in and began looking for allies. A group of prominent Mexican feminists offered to help, and with private and public money, plus a building lent free of charge by the Mexico City Mayor’s Office, they founded Casa Xochiquetzal, a haven where older sex workers rescued from the streets could live with dignity.
“It is a recurrent fact that family members, even their children, abandon them, even hurt them, when they find out they are sex workers,” said Jesica Vargas Gonzalez, the shelter’s director. “It is still a very stigmatized occupation.”
It is not easy to find the house. It is hidden behind a maze of street vendors. The large wooden doors to the entrance are usually locked. “Visitors are only allowed with a previous appointment made by email,” says a sign out front.
During a visit one recent morning, one of the residents, who asked to be called Sol, yelled, “Breakfast is ready!” from the patio, hands around her mouth and looking up to the wraparound balcony on the second floor. The16 current residents, ages 53-87, are responsible for cooking all their meals and cleaning their rooms and all the public areas.
They follow a schedule that details mandatory tasks, but individual approaches to assigned work can cause bickering among them.
“I like it all sparkling clean,” said Rosa Belen Calderon Velazquez, 68, who seemed always busy mopping the floors or dusting. “My mother used to say, ‘Do it well or do not do it at all,’ ” she said with an exasperated look on her face.
Residents also have to take part in the two daily crafts and cooking workshops. The single television, in the patio, is turned on only after 6 p.m.; there is a rotating schedule for who gets the remote control. No drugs are allowed in the house.
Sometimes women who are not retired sex workers are temporarily taken in, usually homeless women who are victims of abuse. All the women receive medical and psychological treatment.
“These are women who need much love, who feel much loneliness,” said Karla Romero Tellez, 29, the shelter’s volunteer psychologist. “But they are very strong. They are survivors. That is what defines them.”