Sex Worker Seeking Election in Peru Promises to Turn Congress into a ‘Respectable Brothel’

[Baobab]

https://news.vice.com/article/sex-worker-seeking-election-in-peru-promises-to-turn-congress-into-a-respectable-brothel

"Activist and sex worker Angela Villón has never had much respect for Peru's legislators. That, she says, is why she is hoping to be elected to the nation's congress in this Sunday's elections.

"Vote for Angela Villón," runs her slogan, "A decent whore who will make the congress a respectable brothel."

Dressed in patent leather high heels that catch the morning sun, Villón explained the metaphor during a morning campaigning around the Peruvian capital, Lima. "We live in a country where politicians are businessmen, and in that business they only favor themselves and their inner circle," she said. "That is why we, sex workers, say that the true brothel is congress: a place where hope, truth, promises, and principles are sold to the highest bidder."

According to an Ipsos Apoyo poll in September 2015, 84 percent of Peruvians don't trust the country's parliament.

"Some people will vote for me because they truly believe in my policies," Villón claimed while getting ready in her house in the poor barrio of San Juan de Lurigancho, which she shares with her husband and four children. "Others will vote for me as a protest against the status quo."

The legislative elections are being held at the same time as the first round presidential poll that is expected to be won by Keiko Fujimori, the daughter of imprisoned former president Alberto Fujimori.


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Although the spotlight has inevitably focused on the presidential race, Villón is one of the 2,600 congressional candidates who has received most attention from the national media. She is the first sex worker to ever seek one of the 130 seats in the single-chamber national congress.

"Even if we don't win, we've opened up the debate," she said. "There has never before been a representative of a vulnerable population like mine in congress. And let's not forget, we are a big minority"

Jonathan Castro, a Lima-based graphic designer, said he was attracted by her no-nonsense approach. "I would vote for her," he said. "But many people still cling to conservative ideals and probably see her candidacy as an insult to the country, a joke, or part of the political circus we currently live in."

[SoLeftIAmRight]

1. lol

some of our politicians - the ones that are paid lots for little - should consider this

[Jeffersons Ghost]

2. K&R lol!

When will China meet Peruvian standards?

[awoke_in_2003]

3. This is a politician I could

get behind.