After a lifetime of work, Mexico City's elderly prostitutes find shelter

After a lifetime of work, Mexico City's elderly prostitutes find shelter Marilú Torres' knees hurt when they swell, her varicose veins are a constant bother, and cataracts are slowly stealing her vision away. Even so, the 72-year-old hits the streets looking for work every day, although she has to walk much further to find clients than she used to. "This year is my golden anniversary as a sex worker," laughed Marilú, who became a prostitute as a young widow with no other means of feeding her three children. "I'm not complaining, I've learned a lot about life in this job. But the old bones are turning to dust like the mummies, and it would be nice to be able to stop soon." She was talking in an abandoned sports museum in the run-down colonial city centre, which is being adapted as a shelter for elderly prostitutes who work the area. There are about 120 of them working the district, charging a standard 70 pesos (£3.30) a job, unless they are desperate enough to accept less, or are offered a little more by a client who insists on not using a condom. Many are homeless, turning tricks for the price of a meal or, if they are lucky, the cost of a night in a seedy hotel as well. Many are also spurned by the children they went into prostitution to provide for. The new shelter aims to give these survivors of the sex trade a chance to retire in a country where the social security system is woefully inadequate for most, and virtually non-existent for women such as these. It should provide a guaranteed bed for up to 70 of them, as well as food, healthcare, and workshops where they can learn how to make things they can sell instead of their bodies. "It is a beautiful thing to have a place to drop," said Ms Torres, prompting nods from workmates also taking a break in the would-be shelter. "We are going to make this a home."