Gabriela Silva Leite (Otília)

Otília Silva Leite, mais conhecida como Gabriela, criou a Da Vida-Prostituição, Direitos, Saúde no Rio de Janeiro para desenvolver ações de base comunitária na área de direitos civis, voltadas principalmente para profissionais do sexo. A organização procura capacitar e emponderar as mulheres para melhorar suas condições de vida e fortalecer a categoria profissional garantindo assim seus direitos básicos, como o direito à saúde.

Gabriela iniciou seu trabalho pela organização profissional e pelos direitos das prostitutas através da construção de alianças com grupos de defesa dos direitos humanos e com advogados atuantes nessa área e então começou a propor outras ações, inclusive um programa de educação e de prevenção de doenças sexualmente transmissíveis. Em 1992, junto com outros envolvidos em um programa de profissionais do sexo, Gabriela criou a Da Vida-Prostituição, Direitos, Saúde.

Por meio da Da Vida, organizou o primeiro encontro nacional de prostitutas, que elaborou uma agenda de trabalho, e sua ação desde então não parou de crescer. Implementou um programa de educação e iniciou um estudo sobre a prostituição no Brasil, ao mesmo tempo em que desenvolvia esforços para influir na elaboração de políticas públicas.

A Da-Vida atua diretamente em 21 cidades dos estados do Sudeste do Brasil e amplia sua ação por meio de 20 associações que ajudou a criar, de encontros regionais, locais e nacionais, entre outras atividades em conjunto com a Rede Nacional de Profissionais do Sexo, fundada por Gabriela. A organização faz a distribuição do jornal Beijo da rua em 16 estados do país.

Gabriela has mapped the several levels of prostitution: from the massage parlors and Copacabana night clubs serving tourists, to the women of the docks area, to the downtown street girls. Gabriela does not deal with the upper layers of prostitution but rather focuses on the far larger, lower groups with which she is personally familiar.
Gabriela describes the field as one governed by "special survival laws without values". These
survival laws do not include attacking the system. When one of her Sao Paulo colleagues was
killed in a police station, a group of prostitutes demonstrated and attracted press attention with
mixed reviews. Gabriela decided not to get involved, fearing for her life.
However, after eight years in the field, she saw that something had to be done. Gabriela has set
out to organize prostitutes in Rio and Sao Paulo and more broadly across the country. She has
three objectives: (1) protection against police violence, (2) education for both the women and
their children, and (3) health care including birth control, not least because of the AIDS threat.

Gabriela's first step toward accomplishing these objectives is to organize the prostitutes. She has
been traveling to prostitute communities in different parts of the country, discussing immediate
problems and long-term strategies. She organized the first national meeting of prostitutes to
begin defining a national agenda, and was deeply touched by the appreciation given her at this
session.
Second, Gabriela is trying to form an alliance with human rights groups and especially with
human rights lawyers so that they will be able to handle future cases as needed.
Third, she has started to build up an education program. Gabriela has increasingly been able to
attract university students, especially education program students, as volunteer teachers.
For her health, educational, and other objectives, Gabriela is pressing for' changes in public
policy.
Finally, she is undertaking research into the history of prostitution in Brazil and gathering a
broad set of background statistics. Gabriela hopes to use this information both to build
awareness within the prostitute community and also as a part of her approach to sensitizing the
Brazilian population.
Gabriela began her organizing work several years ago by launching a simple afternoon course for
the Mangue area's children. However, the church threw her out of the facilities it had made
available when she refused to cease being a prostitute herself, having no other means to support
herself. Ultimately, teaching was re-established at a nearby School of Samba facility.
Since then, she has advanced remarkably quickly. She has clearly learned many skills, e. g. using
the press, and she is well into her learning curve of building an organization.
Gabriela's work could be extremely significant:
(I) The community she is serving in Brazil is enormous (UNICEF claims there are 2. 5 million
teenage girls working as prostitutes in Brazil. ) It is also one of the neediest groups in the
country.
(2) By tackling the extreme case and raising it to a level of public consciousness, Gabriela
may speed the evolution of Brazil's male/female relationships.
Ashoka's help will allow Gabriela to dedicate her full time to this enormous task. It will help her
build a national effort, from the mining towns in the Amazon to the large urban centers.
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