By María Sanz, from Asunción. Photo courtesy of Yohana Kelyn. Trans women from Asunción and surrounding areas reported at least five attacks against them in a single night over the past weekend. Shots with pellets, objects thrown at them, insults, kicks, and punches were some of the attacks suffered in the early hours of Friday, February 9, into Saturday, February 10. Yohana Kelyn was sitting alone at her "stand." That's what sex workers call the places where they usually wait for clients. It was almost 4:00 a.m. on Friday, and there were no other women left in the Mariscal López area of ​​Asunción when a truck suddenly appeared and parked near her. It was a truck like the ones used for delivering goods, and a man got out. Without saying a word, he went straight to Yohana and kicked her hard. Yohana fell to the ground, her face hitting the asphalt, and she began to bleed. Later, she told Presentes that she felt one of her front teeth come loose from her gums. Already on the ground, four other men approached and began hitting her, trying to steal her purse. Yohana tried to protect her face from the blows. “The consequences (of the attack) have been too many. I have to get dentures, and my face is all scraped up. They took my money. I can't go out to work. I'm left with psychological trauma; I'm afraid to go out on the street,” she told this publication. She also lamented that sex work is her only employment option, as is the case for 98% of trans people in Paraguay. “What I would like more than anything is to work at something other than risking my life, but we have no other alternative. Trans people in Paraguay don't have homes, and we live in rents that cost an arm and a leg. If I had an alternative, I would choose it,” she said.

State, police and complicit media

Yohana believes she was attacked because of “the deep-rooted transphobia in this country, where people still believe that (being a trans person) is something bad.” She blamed the media for these attacks, as they criticize trans people daily. “They start speaking ill of us, creating confusion that leads some men to retaliate. People say that what we are is a sin, that it’s not accepted, that we’re going to pass it on to our children (…). People think we’re scum and they start attacking us, verbally or physically, as in my case,” she commented. She also opined that The State is responsible for these attacks, by guaranteeing impunity, and maintaining police officers “who are the main discriminators”He recalled that, in Paraguay, there are already close to 60 trans people have been murdered since the end of the dictatorship in 1989, and none of those responsible have been convicted.“I don’t know how many more of these things have to happen to us before people start to realize that we are human beings, that we exist, and that We want each other to be alive.”he emphasized.

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Multiple simultaneous attacks on the same night  Yohana's attack wasn't the only one reported in the early hours of Saturday morning. At least four other locations on the outskirts of Asunción saw attacks against transgender sex workers. Always with the same motive. modus operandiA car, usually without license plates, drives through the area and, when it reaches the trans women, turns on its high beams and accelerates, while its occupants shout insults and throw objects or projectiles at them. In one of the attacks recorded on Friday, in the town of San Lorenzo (Greater Asunción), the vehicle's occupants fired pellets and slingshots at the trans women who were on the street. In another incident, also in San Lorenzo, they threw beer bottles at them. Several trans women even reported hearing shots fired into the air from inside a vehicle, although they could not determine whether it was a firearm or an air gun, a source told [the newspaper/organization]. Present Yren Rotela, human rights activist and representative of the Panambí organization, which represents transgender, transsexual and transvestite people in Paraguay.

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"We don't have any other job"

Rotela stated that these incidents occurred almost simultaneously in different parts of the city: an area of ​​San Lorenzo where several motels are located, another area within the same city, the area near the Asunción Bus Terminal, and the area near the city's wholesale market. "Based on the way they acted in all the situations," he said, We suspect it's a group that's prepared to do these things. That they're acting with full awareness of their intentions: to intimidate us, to prevent us from working in that area. But even though we're afraid, we have no other job.Rotela stated.

On alert 

Rotela denounced that in recent months, trans people have been living in a alert situation, with periodic waves of violence against them. “Everything is connected. These waves of violence don't arise because someone wakes up one day and decides to attack us: they are prepared. We believe that lThe speeches given by politicians, supposedly religious people, celebrities, and the media are instilling violence towards us.“They claim that we are attacking families and children, they see us as a threat, and they call us degenerates and abusers. And that generates more violence against us,” she said.

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Faced with this alarming situation, many trans sex workers have implemented safety strategies to protect themselves and their colleagues. “At night I walk around the sex work areas, see how many of my colleagues are there, who went out to work. The next day I contact them, find out if they're okay, and make sure they're not at a police station or hospital,” Rotela explained. “We try never to be alone, so there's always a colleague who can write down a vehicle's license plate number if something happens, keep track of working hours, and make sure the colleague returns,” she revealed.

The foundations of impunity

She added that many transgender sex workers are reluctant to report the violence they experience because they fear an increased police presence in their work areas, which would drive away clients. Furthermore, many of them distrust the police. And they don't rule out the possibility that the perpetrators are the officers themselves, when they are off duty. The lack of reports and investigations contributes to these assaults going unpunished. According to A report by Panambí on violence against trans peopleAccording to a report presented in 2017, non-lethal attacks are the most common type of violence against transgender people in Paraguay. “Transgender people frequently suffer attacks ranging from pushing to beatings, having water, bottles, stones, blunt objects, and even acid thrown at them (...). These acts of violence are so common that they go unreported, as they are considered part of everyday life,” the document concludes.