For what reasons is the request to claim the Witch's body denied and what is the significance of the refusal?

In a critique of both bureaucracy and bigotry, Melchor portrays the outcome of the sex workers' request to have the Witch's body released to them for a proper burial. She writes that the women were furious when the police told them that they could not claim the body if they did not know the Witch's true name. The significance of this request is that the reader knows by now that even the Witch herself had not known her name, as her mother, the Old Witch, had called her by a litany of insulting slurs in the odd moment when she had anything to say to her. The police, of course, do not care about the women's reasons or their motivations, so they are turned away with no recourse to appeal.