By submitting the above I agree to the privacy policy and terms of use of JTA. Raquel Liberman played a critical role in the dismantling of infamous Argentine sex-trafficking ring Zwi Migdal and in the move to outlaw prostitution in the country.
JTA β The city of Buenos Aires will rename a major subway station in honor of Raquel Liberman, the Jewish woman who played a critical role in the dismantling of an infamous Argentine sex-trafficking ring and in the move to outlaw prostitution in the country. She arrived with two small children, hoping to reunite with her husband who immigrated ahead of them and start a new life. But by the time her ocean liner docked in Buenos Aires, her husband had become sick with tuberculosis. He died a few months later.
Becoming a sex worker was the only option for the year-old who needed to support herself and her children. She worked in a brothel under Zwi Migdal as one of hundreds of prostitutes controlled by the group. As in much of the rest of the world, the prostitution business was legal in Argentina as long as the women participated voluntarily.
But Zwi Migdal would deceive women, typically by luring them from Eastern Europe under false promises of employment or marriage and then ensnaring them in sex work once they arrived in Buenos Aires.
Eventually, Liberman saved up what she thought would be enough money to buy freedom from her pimps, but they refused to grant her independence. She faced threats, harassment and theft as she tried to establish her life anew.
