Prostitution in Brazil
Prostitution in Brazil is legal and common.
Legal position
Prostitution in Brazil is legal. However, it is forbidden for third parties to gain advantage or profit from the prostitution of other people.
Prostitution and slavery
After unsuccessful attempts with enslaved Indians , the Portuguese began to import Africans to Brazil in the 16th century. The slaves had to be sexually available to their owners and, at their behest, also to overseers, friends, relatives, visitors, traveling craftsmen, traders, etc. From there it was only a small step to prostitution with enslaved African and Afro-Brazilian women . Since slaves were regarded as things and not as people and were viewed similarly to animals, they were not protected by any laws and could be exploited almost without restriction. There were also no restrictions on the use of underage slave girls in the brothels . Many slave owners also sent their slaves out on the street to earn money by selling homemade sweets, small products or services, and that naturally included the possibility of decorating girls with a few colorful and gold ribbons and buying them on them To send on the street, often with the onset of puberty . The young slave girls and women were either sent to work in the brothels or had to offer themselves at the windows of their owners' houses , or they were given a permit by their mistress or master that allowed them to be on the street alone at night . They had to come back at dawn and hand over the money they had earned by desecrating their own bodies. If the specified minimum amount was not achieved, the usual punitive measures were taken on the slave. In the first half of the 19th century slaves destined for prostitution were bought directly from African traders; After the official slave trade between Africa and America came to an end, the slave girls were mainly delivered to brothels and pimps from the large farms in Minas Gerais and northeastern Brazil. Pimps, often previously poor " gypsies " or petty criminals, became very wealthy and lived in the greatest " lasciviousness in the midst of their group of young, submissive black sex slaves." In private classified ads, too, when private domestic slaves were sold, the willingness and sexual submissiveness of "well-educated" black girls and women with black and white ancestors were often pointed out quite unashamedly.
There were four types of prostitute in the 19th century: First the aforementioned African and Afro-Brazilian women who had to prostitute themselves on the orders of their owner. Often they had to deliver the entire income, some were allowed to keep a portion as an incentive and still others had to take a minimum amount every day, otherwise they were beaten or otherwise tortured . The second lowest category was made up of poor free women, often former slaves or their daughters, who lived in miserable huts and gave themselves up to prostitution there or on the street. The third category was made up of foreign girls who had been lured or sold to Brazil under false promises. They were free before the law, but the bondage into which they were driven treated them like slaves, locked them in brothels, and also beaten and tortured if they could not meet the minimum standards set by their owners . The fourth category consisted of French and other high-class hookers who lived in their own large houses, owned carriages and exquisite jewelry, and could attend theaters and other social events.
The fact that slave girls and women were being exploited as unlawful prostitutes was grist to the mill of abolitionism , the movement to abolish slavery in the 19th century. In 1871 it led to the Lei do Ventre Livre ("Law of the Free Belly"), according to which the children of female slaves were no longer slaves themselves. This law also decided that slaves were allowed to save money that the master was not allowed to take away from them at will and with which they could buy themselves free. This led to the fact that the incentive to prostitute themselves became very great among the slaves, as they thus had the chance to earn a share and tips for themselves. The inhibition threshold for prostitution was mostly low, since even slaves who were not encouraged to engage in commercial prostitution had learned from childhood that they had no sexual self-determination and were used to rape . However, the custody and administration of the savings of a slave was incumbent on the owner, and so he could try with the tricks of ordinary pimps to manipulate the savings and offset them against costs. In individual cases there were even trials of female slaves against their masters, in which the women often had to prove, with the help of suitors , that they had been "hardworking" and had numerous customers, which was intended to refute the mistaken bookkeeping of the master.
The height of prostitution in the early 20th century
After the abolition of official slavery, many former slaves and their daughters or granddaughters pushed onto the market to find a niche as prostitutes. In addition, there were more and more imported girls from Europe, especially from the poorer areas in the east, Jewish girls, Albanians , women and girls from the Habsburg Empire , but also French and Italian women for the more sophisticated. The novels of the well-known Brazilian writer Jorge Amado tell of this time , in which there are often more prostitutes than other women. The peak was reached around 1930 ; the brothels in Rio de Janeiro were famous all over the world, the Casa Rosa brothel is now a cultural center .
Jewish forced prostitutes in Brazil
The Jewish prostitutes form a special chapter of prostitution in Brazil. In 1867, seventy Jewish women from Poland came ashore in the port of Rio de Janeiro , who had been lured under false promises and then abused as prostitutes. Like their subsequent Jewish fellow sufferers from Russia, Lithuania, Romania, Austria and even France, they were soon popularly referred to as Polacas . About 1200 women followed them in the years immediately thereafter. Most were victims of the Jewish pimp mafia Zwi Migdal . Its members traveled to the impoverished shtetl of Eastern Europe and pretended to be established business people from Latin America looking for a bride. In truth, they were trafficking in human beings . The women who believed their promises became sex slaves.
In 1931 Brazil had more than 400 Jewish brothels. In 1936 the writer Stefan Zweig visited Rio de Janeiro's well-known red-light district Mangue. He also noted in his diary about the misery of these women, but also that those Jewish women from Eastern Europe promise exciting and unusual perversions. The prostitutes who continued to be devout and pious founded a second Jewish community in Rio, with their own cemetery and synagogue . There the women celebrated the Jewish festivals, although at that time there was no liturgy for women. The pimps were important sponsors of the Jewish theater. At the premieres, luxuriously made-up Polacas sat in the front rows and were presented to potential customers. The Second World War ended this trafficking in women. The Jewish prostitutes influenced the cultural life and the artistic scene of Rio, among other things they inspired many compositions. On average, the women were only forty years old. There are three cemeteries for prostitutes in Brazil. In 1970, the last of the prostitutes lured into the country was buried in the Jewish prostitute cemetery in Rio.
In 2007, Rio de Janeiro's Jewish community celebrated the Jewish prostitutes for the first time with a women-only Sabbath ceremony. The celebration was not held in a synagogue but in the cultural center of the Lapa district . The subject is sensitive among Jews and prejudice persists, reports Rio's Rabbi Nilton Bonder, who organized the ceremony.
Sex tourism
Reports about the Brazilian carnival and its half-naked dancers, traditionally mainly Afro-Brazilian women, about samba and the thong , the tiny bikini that dominated Brazil's beaches from around 1970 to 2010, deliberately lured adventurous vacationers into the country. Until the 1990s, holiday brochures almost always presented the plump buttocks of Brazilian women with African roots in front of picturesque beach backdrops. Especially because of the growing awareness of child prostitution around the world, advertising is now much less direct, which does not mean that there is no longer any sex tourism. However, the government has been able to fight child prostitution since the beginning of the 21st century with poster campaigns and intensified police checks and in some cases contain it.
Current situation
The line between prostitutes and non-prostitutes is becoming more fluid as there is more and more casual prostitution . Teenagers offer sex in order to get a cell phone, to work off debts or to gain immaterial advantages; women stand on the street or on the beach or are forced to do so by their partners in order to be able to pay unscheduled expenses. Oral sex is not considered actual sex among teenagers and therefore not considered prostitution. While official estimates therefore assume one million Brazilian prostitutes, associations cite far higher numbers. In the Orkut network, which was formerly the predominant network in Brazil , up to 30% of all women and girls questioned stated in various surveys that they had already performed sexual services for money or other benefits or goods.
The miles dedicated to sex for sale are known, often entire districts, such as the Vila Mimosa in Rio de Janeiro or the Rua Augusta in São Paulo . On the other hand, on Rua Guaicurus in Belo Horizonte , capital of the state of Minas Gerais , there are hundreds of naked or half-naked girls in small rooms or in front of them, where the men can inspect them at close range. That's why the houses are always teeming with onlookers who often don't want sex for sale, but only come because of the visual stimuli. The prices are very cheap here, even by Brazilian standards, but despite the large number of prostitutes, many get over 20 clients per 12-hour shift. A prostitute needs between four and fifteen clients to pay the daily rent. The rooms are small, poorly ventilated, dark and mostly without a bathroom.
The state of Minas Gerais is also the seat of the Regen Aprosmig, the association of prostitutes in Minas Gerais, which, among other things, has a Miss Prostituta elected every year and has provided the prostitutes with working papers , English courses for the World Cup and Olympics and access to insurance, and through it Initiative can also be paid for cashless on the street . Furthermore, a sex museum goes back to his initiative.
Similar organizations already exist in some other states. Professing prostitutes such as Bruna Surfistinha or the literary Petala Parreira are also active in them.
At times, the socialist government under Presidents Lula and Dilma Rousseff actively supported the prostitution movements and advertised with posters that prostitution should be viewed as a normal profession.
Human trafficking and prostitution
Brazilian prostitutes, some of them male and transvestites , work mainly in Argentina , Chile , Suriname , Uruguay , USA , Portugal , Spain , the Netherlands and Great Britain .
See also
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Clóvis Moura: Dicionário da Escravidão Negra no Brasil, Sao Paulo, 2004, p. 327 ff, on the Internet here .
- ↑ Gil Freyre: Casa-Grande & Senzala, 48th edition, Recife, 2003, p. 537 ff. On the internet here .
- ↑ Renata Maria Coimbra Libório, Sônia M. Gomes Sousa: A exploração sexual de crianças e adolescentes no Brasil, Sao Paulo, 2004, p. 242ff. On the internet here .
- ↑ Dicionário da escravidão (Dictionary of Slavery), p.227ff .
- ^ Luiz Carlos Soares: Prostitution in Nineteenth-Century Rio de Janeiro, University of London, 1988, pp. 20f. On the internet here .
- ^ Luiz Carlos Soares: Prostitution in Nineteenth-Century Rio de Janeiro, University of London, 1988, p. 12ff. On the internet here .
- ↑ Escravas, prostitutas eo Brasil político de 1871
- ↑ Luiz Carlos Soares: Prostitution in Nineteenth-Century Rio de Janeiro, University of London, 1988, p. 17f on the Internet here .
- ↑ Prostituição, tráfico e exploração sexual de crianças: diálogo multidisciplinar
- ↑ Cristiana Schettini, Thaddeus Blanchette: A History of Rio Sex
- ↑ Information Center Latin America e. V .: Jewish prostitutes in Brazil - The large Jewish community of the tropical country broke a sensitive taboo in its history (Klaus Hart) ( Memento from September 26, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) August 29, 2007
- ^ Spiegel online: The ordeal of the white slaves
- ↑ Christ in the Present: Issue 36, 59th year, Ins gelobte Land ins brothel. September 9, 2007
- ↑ Alex Bergstedt: Wonderful terrifying Brazil, Hamburg, 2016, p. 60f
- ↑ Desvendando a rua Guaicurus
- ↑ Alex Bergstedt: Wonderful terrifying Brazil, Hamburg, 2016, p. 82ff
- ↑ Dec programas apenas para pagar o quarto
- ↑ Aprosmig (Association of Prostitutes in Minas Gerais)
- ↑ Globo: Miss Prostituta 2014
- ^ Preparing Prostitutes for the World Cup
- ↑ Aprosmig on fundodireitoshumanos.org.br
- ↑ Books by Petala Parreira on Free Ebooks
- ↑ Globo: Posters with prostitutes