British Broadcasting Corporation Home. Its central plaza is dominated by a beautiful cathedral, its tree-lined streets are full of interesting shops and quality restaurants. Some call La Plata the prostitution capital of Argentina It is a thriving university city and the capital of Buenos Aires province - the largest and wealthiest in Argentina.
But there is also a sinister, sleazy underside to La Plata. Some call it the prostitution capital of Argentina. In and around the city there are hundreds of brothels, incongruous from the outside - in residential streets, at the bottom of dirt roads - often only recognisable by a straggly array of coloured light-bulbs or a barely visible name. Susana Martinez is a former prostitute who now helps to run the Sandra Cabrera health centre in the city. It is a health centre run by sex workers for sex workers.
It was set up two years ago, with the help of the local authorities, after prostitutes, rent-boys, transvestites and transsexuals complained they were suffering discrimination in the public hospitals. Sandra Cabrera was a campaigning sex worker killed by the police in a still-unresolved case. Sex workers' needs "They would shout things like 'You deal with the whores,' or 'Look what's blown in with the rubbish,'" said Susana. She added that sex workers also had different medical needs and worked different hours to other people.
The public health system simply was not serving their needs. A recent study in Argentina also found that one in three people did not know how Aids and the HIV virus were transmitted. This in a well-informed public after more than 20 years of campaigns and advertising. So former sex workers, like Susana, and those still working, like Mishel, work with the medical staff at their health centre to build trust with the patients and to educate as well as treat.
Susana Martinez does twice-weekly visits to brothels "One day a colleague told me that our doctor, while doing the check-ups, tried to persuade the girls to leave prostitution and the streets. I've never told them to stop being doctors and change profession.
