I posted a link a couple of days ago to the campaign for Justice for Linda campaign, and I've done my bit in sending the email to Venezuelan justice officials.
But the case has continued to haunt me - not just because of the horrific ordeal that she endured - four months of captivity and torture; I'm afraid I've been a journalist too long, and have read too much of the details of trials that never make it in to print for reasons of "taste", to let such details affect me.
What really struck me was the legal situation:
In an attempt to exploit an outrageous piece of the Venezuelan Penal Code which calls for a reduced sentence for crimes against sex workers, Carrera Almoina's defense claimed that Loaiza was part of a prostitution ring. If sentenced to jail time, Carrera Almoina would have only have had to serve a fifth of the normal sentence. No evidence was presented in support of these claims, and Loaiza has consistently denied them.
I was in a debate on the subject of religion here about the damage done by religion, and here's a classic example of the hideously damaging social effects of religious morality.
What this law is in effect declaring is that sex workers are sub-human - one-fifth of a human to be precise.
I've had more encounters with this issue in Asia, and have written on women's and children's human rights there, but it seems this is a worldwide issue.
And it's an issue for ALL women, as Linda's case indicates. For this is really just an extension of the argument all too familiar to campaigners for women's rights for protection from assault in Western states: "she asked for it by being drunk/wearing the wrong clothes/being in the wrong place".
It occurs to me that only when the letter and the process of the law protects sex workers as it protects anyone else, is any woman fully protected. (Indeed, any person, since I suspect male rape is the great un-reported crime, and there are certainly plenty of male sex workers.)
Article comments
1 - Aaman
Interesting - would appreciate more detail/depth
2 - Natalie Bennett
If you follow the Justice for Linda link you'll get a full account of the case - I was just trying to pick up the human rights/legal angle.
The humanitarian angle, it seems to me, speaks for itself.
3 - Natalie Davis
I signed the petition last week. Compelling story, and heartbreaking too. Thanks for spreading the word!
4 - Dave Nalle
>>What this law is in effect declaring is that sex workers are sub-human - one-fifth of a human to be precise.<<
Just in the interest of accuracy, what the law is saying is actually that sex workers are criminals and that crimes against criminals are less serious than crimes against upstanding citizens. I think that's a debatable position for a government to take, but the key difference is the criminal nature of the lifestyle of the victims.
Now, the real solution to all of this is to legalize prostitution and see that the women are no longer exploited and abused because of the illegal nature of their employment - not by the state, their customers or criminals.
Dave
5 - Natalie Bennett
Unusually enough Dave :-) I agree with you on the legalisation of prostitution.
As to the aspect of criminal law, I can't debate the details of the Venezualan legal code, but I have a feeling that there's probably not the same provision if you happen to murder say a white-collar criminal while he is walking down the street minding his own business.
6 - Victor Plenty
Our constitutional convention settled on a "three-fifths compromise," but they certainly weren't saying any black person was going to get three fifths of a vote. There is never an exactly precise meaning to these bizarre legal twists, but they still betray a pathetic shortfall of human values in the people who legislate them.
When the law says a crime against a prostitute will result in only one-fifth the sentence of a crime against anyone else, it's no deception to say the law values the sex worker only one-fifth as much as other human beings.
Which is really a sad statement on the current state of Venezuela's culture, when you consider that even a slave was legally valued at three-fifths the normal human rate, over 200 years ago in America.
7 - Victor Lana
The great concern here is "human rights" and not the rights of criminals. There is a danger in declaring anyone (criminals, Gitmo detainees, or even sleazy politicians) a fraction of a person. That feeds into a mentality abuse and possibly murder.
Just think of the old designation of slaves as 3/5 of a human being from the 19th century. This kind of fractioning of human beings was repugnant then as it is now. When governments sanction a travesty like this, only horrific results can from it.
8 - Victor Plenty
Well said, Victor. It is one thing to say convicted criminals lose certain rights, such as the right to freedom of movement, the right to vote, or even the right to life. These losses of rights are necessary to protect the community from the criminals, and are imposed only after due process of law.
Laws that reduce the penalty for crimes "committed against criminals" are the exact opposite of due process. They encourage vigilante activity and undermine equal protection of the laws. The sole exception would be carefully crafted provisions for self defense in cases of immediate danger to life.
There is nothing "debatable" about this, despite Dave's claim; such laws are entirely repugnant and unacceptable in any civilized legal system.
9 - Dave Nalle
>>Unusually enough Dave :-) I agree with you on the legalisation of prostitution.<<
We probably agree more than you realize. It's just that when we disagree we disagree strongly.
>>As to the aspect of criminal law, I can't debate the details of the Venezualan legal code, but I have a feeling that there's probably not the same provision if you happen to murder say a white-collar criminal while he is walking down the street minding his own business.<<
No, probably not. But the point I was getting at is that I'm sure they didn't pass that law on the argument that prostitutes were sub-human or on a purely moral argument. Remember, Venezuela is a secular, communist state right now, so they most likely made a functional justification for the law rather than a religious one.
No one is more self-righteous about things that 'harm' society than communists are. This kind of law is very characteristic of the communist/fascist social engineering type legislation you saw in Soviet Russia and in Nazi Germany, and Hugo Chavez is clearly stamped from the same mold.
Dave
10 - Dave Nalle
>>There is nothing "debatable" about this, despite Dave's claim; such laws are entirely repugnant and unacceptable in any civilized legal system.<<
The unacceptability isn't debatable. All I question is the motivation or rationale for this legal peculiarity.
Dave
11 - Nancy
What is the situation for sex workers in countries where they are legal? Aren't they legal in Holland? I get the impression from articles I read that sex workers in Holland aren't any better off than illegal sex workers anywhere else. Anyone have better info on this (I'm sure someone does)? Thanks.
AND - how come they never prosecute or arrest the men involved?
12 - Dave Nalle
Sex workers in the US are certainly better off in Nevada and other places where their work is legal. I'm not as familiar with the situation in Holland but it seems unlikely that a country where the sex industry is so well established would be negligent in providing workers with the equal protection of the law. They may not be able to totally reduce the higher risk nature of their work, but I'm sure they don't give criminals a break based on who their victims are.
dave
13 - Nancy
Whatever happened to "COYOTE", the prostitutes' union? I had hopes they were going to do good things for their situation.
14 - Victor Plenty
Venezuela hasn't been "communist" all that long. It's quite possible this section of their penal code was written long before Hugo Chavez had any political power whatsoever.
15 - Dave Nalle
BTW, Venezuela is in the process of enacting a new penal code, though it's not clear that it will address this issue. It seems mostly focused on throwing any kind of dissenter or member of the press who's critical of the government in jail.
Dave
16 - RJ
"even a slave was legally valued at three-fifths the normal human rate, over 200 years ago in America."
Actually, since this has been brought up, a little education seems to be in order.
Counting slaves in the South as only 60% of a white person was not to demean blacks (they already had just about zero rights in the South, and were therefore considered about 0% of a white person).
But by counting slaves as only 60% of a person, it actually REDUCED to aggregate number of people to be counted in the South when it came time to apportion seats in the House of Representatives.
So, it was in effect an ANTI-SLAVERY compromise by our Founding Fathers. Giving the Southern states the ability to count indentured servants as a "full person" would have given the South more political power, and would have made the plight of blacks in America even worse, for even longer.
FYI...