PARIS — As Paris hosts the 2024 Olympics, undocumented Chinese sex worker Hua says increased police patrols are threatening her livelihood.

“I really feel pressure, I’m constantly afraid. There are police checks every day,” the 55-year-old said, using a different name to avoid being recognized.

“That’s why I go out to work less and less.”

According to government and charity estimates, around 40,000 people in France, the vast majority of them women, are sold sex and their goods or exploited for sex.

Under French law, selling sex is legal, but exploiting someone or paying for sex is illegal, so the criminal responsibility lies with pimps and clients.

It is more complicated if the sex worker has no papers.

“I’m so afraid of being arrested that I don’t want to work on the streets during the Olympics,” said the divorced woman, who came to France seven years ago hoping to earn a decent living as a cleaner and who has been diagnosed with breast cancer.

“If they arrest me, I will be sent back to China and will no longer receive medical care there.”

In an office of the charity Medecins du Monde (Doctors of the World) in the northeastern Paris district of Belleville, she burst into tears.

In another part of Paris, on a street known for the sex industry near the city center, Mylene Juste was looking for clients.

She said she was particularly concerned about new security rules restricting pedestrian and traffic movement in Paris.

“Our regular customers can’t cope with all the restrictions that exist,” says Juste, 50 years old and a sex worker for 22 years.

“And I don’t think the tourists passing by will attack us. So we’re leaving here,” she added.