Prostitution in Brazil
Brazil is considered to have the worst levels of child sex trafficking after Thailand, with an estimated 250,000 children involved.
[8] According to the recently released Protection Project report, various official sources agree that from 250,000 to 500,000 children live as child prostitutes.
), but sex workers and call girls can contribute to the official government pension fund and receive benefits when they retire.
The National Network of Sex Professionals (Rede Brasileira de Prostitutas)[17] was angry at Beijing's (4th) International Conference on Women for their condemnation of prostitution.
[20] The law professor Luiz Flavio Gomes has told the O Globo newspaper in its online edition that "What is on the site gives the impression of an apology for sexual exploitation.
Many slaveowners also sent their slaves to the streets to make money by selling homemade sweets, small products or services, and as if it were the most natural thing of the world they also used the opportunity to decorate girls with a few colorful and gold ribbons.
[23][24] The young slave girls and women were sent either to work in the brothels or had to offer themselves at the windows of the houses of their owners or they received a passport from their mistress or their master which allowed them to spend the night in the streets, and in dawn they had to return and with the money they earned from prostitution.
After the end of official slavery between Africa and America, the slave girl were delivered by the large farms in Minas Gerais and northeastern Brazil to the brothels and pimps.
Pimps, often poor "gypsies" or small criminals, came to great prosperity and lived "in the greatest lascivious behavior among their host of young, submissive black sex slaves."
Often, they had to deliver the entire income, some others were allowed to keep part of the money for incentive, and others had to bring a minimum each day, otherwise they were beaten or tortured.
The fourth category was made up of French and other courtesans who lived in their own large houses and possessed carriages and exquisite jewelry and frequented theaters and other sociological events.
[27] The fact that the enslaved girls and women were exploited in prostitution without misery nor protection by the law was also used as an argument for the abolitionism, the social movement to abolish slavery in the 19th century.
The inhibition to prostitute themselves was usually low for the female slaves, because they had learned since childhood that they had no sexual self-determination and were accustomed to be raped.
[29] After the abolition of official slavery in Brazil by the Lei Áurea (Golden Law) in 1888, many former female slaves and their daughters and granddaughters tried to earn some money as prostitutes.
[34] In 1867, to the port of Rio de Janeiro came seventy Jewish women from Poland, who had been attracted by false promises and were abused as prostitutes.
Like their subsequent Jewish sufferers from Russia, Lithuania, Romania, Austria, and even France, they were called "Polacas" (Polish Girls).
Their members traveled to the impoverished towns of Eastern Europe and established themselves as rich businessmen from Latin America looking for brides.
In 1936 the German writer Stefan Zweig visited Rio de Janeiro's famous red light district Mangue.
[43] The most important districts devoted to commercial sex are the Vila Mimosa in Rio de Janeiro or the Rua Augusta in São Paulo, are well known.
In the Rua Guaicurus in Belo Horizonte, Capital of the Federal State Minas Gerais,[44] there are hundreds of naked or half-naked girls in small rooms or in front of them, where they can be seen and contacted by the men passing through the floors.
[46] In April 2021, many prostitutes in Minas Gerais participated in a work stoppage with the goal of being recognized as a priority group for COVID-19 vaccines.
Gabriela Silva Leite, the executive director of Prostitution Civil Rights, says that because of information campaigns, condom use among sex workers is high.
"[47] A Washington Post article stated that the Brazilian anti-AIDS program is considered by the United Nations to be the most successful in the developing world.
[48] High numbers of Brazilian sex workers are found in various regions of the Americas, primarily Argentina, Chile, French Guiana, Paraguay, Suriname, Uruguay, and Venezuela, as well as in predominantly Romance-speaking Western European countries, including Portugal, Italy, Spain, Belgium, and the Netherlands, and to a lesser degree in Japan, the United Kingdom, and the United States.
From the 1960s to the 1990s, the brochures of travel agencies often included a large picture showing the rounded butts of Brazilian mulattoes in front of picturesque beach scenes.
[6] In 2014 an English NGO announced they would run advertisements on British flights to Brazil to discourage tourists paying for sex with children during the FIFA World Cup.
