Prostitute-turned deputy makes Dominican history starting Aug.

Santo Domingo.- She was sexually assaulted as a child,abused by her husband and worked as a prostitute. But when Jacqueline Monteroassumes as a deputy in August, sex workers will have their own voice in thelegislature, a woman who knows their plight firsthand and is willing to pushfor laws that will likely roil the mostly conservative nation.

Montero, 46, grew up in a house of her mother’s relatives whereshe was raped numerous times as a child by a family member.

She married at age 16 to a man who beat her and ended upbecoming a prostitute.

"I know how hard it is to have to go out (to make aliving) because your family has no food; when one has nothing to eat, one goes withthe first (man) to appear," Montero said, quoted by eldia.com.do.

In the office of an organization to help prostitutes whichshe heads, furnished with the basics, the walls display diplomas earned afterleaving her profession and certificates of various international conferences onsex workers which she attended.

"If I hadn’t violated when I was a child and the adultshad believed me, I wouldn’t’ve been a sex worker," says the woman who livesin the impoverished town of ??Haina, where she prostituted herself for nearly adecade after her husband left her after years of abuse.

Montero said she hit bottom and decided to change her lifewhen she was beaten by a customer who refused to use a condom and a car accidentthat left her bedridden during eight months.