Roxi, who is Venezuelan, soon found a job selling soft drinks when she arrived in Lima in 2021. But her wages were not enough to support her five children, two of whom depend entirely on her. A friend introduced her to sex work. “It’s not easy, and sometimes I wish I could do something else, but as a Venezuelan, it’s difficult to find work. I keep doing this so my children don’t go hungry or lack what they need.”

When the COVID-19 pandemic hit, Lucia lost her means of supporting her child and grandmother. After finishing a job, she was stopped by the police. “They opened my purse and took the money I had earned… they insulted and threatened me,” she says. The officers told her that next time, she would have to pay them an extortion fee. Today, she finds work through ads but has not escaped violence. She has been kidnapped multiple times and still hopes to find justice for the abuses she has suffered at the hands of both criminals and law enforcement.

Katherine arrived in Lima when she was eight years old. She thought she was coming to study, but in reality, her mother forced her to clean cars using a sponge and newspaper. She carried on working to help support her family, selling flowers, sweeping the streets, and cleaning more cars. “I had to bring home 100 soles (US$26), or my mother would beat me hard”, she recalls. She got into sex work out of necessity. But everything changed in 2023, when armed men followed her husband and murdered him in broad daylight. According to Katherine, the killers targeted him because she had refused to pay the extortion fee demanded in exchange for being allowed to work.

Liliana arrived in Lima in 2017. She was in love and left Venezuela with her partner, hoping for a better life in Peru. She worked as a receptionist and later as a street vendor selling drinks, but the meager earnings were not enough to cover her family’s needs. She entered sex work after responding to a newspaper ad and contacting a Peruvian woman who helped her place ads. Then came the Tren de Aragua and its factions—and with them, extortion. “I don’t have a fixed place to work because they’re always trying to charge me more,” she says. Today, she finds strength in organizing with other women to fight for their rights. “We are all in this struggle together,” she adds.

Before becoming a sex worker, Paulina worked as a hostess in a club. Eventually, she felt that she had no choice but to turn to sex work to support her child. “I had to go work at a mine,” she recalls. Later, she returned to the capital, where she continued in the trade. She has little contact with her family and does what she can to provide for her children. She has been extorted both by Tren de Aragua and by the police, who she says have detained her multiple times without cause.

Marcela’s first job was washing clothes. She was eight years old, and her family didn’t look after her. “At 13, I ran away from home,” she remembers. A friend took her to a bar, where she started working as a waitress before being sexually exploited. “The owner, ‘la mami,’ controlled me—everything I earned went to her,” she says. She later moved to a remote city to work before returning to Lima. But violence followed her. Since returning, she has been beaten, raped, and threatened, she says. “There was never any justice for me. That’s the worst part.”