Prostitution in Brazil is legal, in terms of exchanging sex for money, as there are no laws forbidding adults from being professional sex workers, but it is illegal to operate a brothel or to employ sex workers in any other way.Gabriela Silva Leite, PBS NewsHour, 13 July 2003 Public order and vagrancy laws are used against street prostitutes. The affordability of prostitutes is the most inquired-about term in word completion queries on purchases on Google in Brazil.
Extent A 2013 survey published by UNAIDS estimated there to be 546,848 prostitutes in the country.
Exploitation of children and teenagers through prostitution in Brazil is widespread and a serious problem. Brazil is considered to have the worst levels of child sex trafficking after Thailand, with an estimated 250,000 children involved.2009 Human Rights Report: Brazil. State.gov (11 March 2010). Retrieved 9 May 2011. The phenomenon is closely related with high levels of poverty and inequality in some areas of the country. According to the recently released Protection Project report, various official sources agree that from 250,000 to 500,000 children live as child prostitutes.
NGOs and officials report some police officers ignore the exploitation of children in sex trafficking, patronize brothels, and rob and assault women in prostitution, impeding identification of sex trafficking victims.
The government of Brazil was working stringently to clamp down on child prostitution.
Regulation Prostitution itself (exchanging sex for money) in Brazil is legal, as there are no laws forbidding adult sex work, but it is illegal to operate a brothel or to employ sex workers in any other way.
The houses might be illegal, but are not unusual in Brazil. Most of them are full of corruption and sexual exploitation. The federal deputy Jean Wyllys presented, in 2013, the Gabriela Leite Law Project. A project that aims to regulate the sex worker profession and rights.
In 2002 pressure by the sex worker organization Davida contributed to the Brazilian Ministry of Labor adding "sex worker" to an official list of occupations.Von der Sexarbeiterin zur Prostituierten, Lateinamerika Nachrichten, November 2005. Professional sex work is not regulated in any way (no mandatory health checks, no licenses are issued, etc.), but sex workers and call girls can contribute to the official government pension fund and receive benefits when they retire.
Fernando Gabeira, founder of the Green Party, has been a strong voice for sex workers' rights in Brazil and introduced legislation in Congress to recognize sex workers as a profession. The bill was defeated in 2007.
Brazilian sex workers have campaigned for the repeal of laws criminalizing the maintenance of whorehouses and pimping. Those offenses carry sentences from two to five years in prison. They demanded that they should pay social benefits and get all the privileges like any other worker. The National Network of Sex Professionals (Rede Brasileira de Prostitutas) was angry at Beijing's (4th) International Conference on Women for their condemnation of prostitution. Their leader, ex-prostitute and sociologist Gabriela da Silva Leite, said that she had classes with sociologist Fernando Henrique Cardoso at University of São Paulo, who later became Brazil's president.[For a free body market Rapidinhas Brazil Nov 1995]
Government website The government's website on sex workers Brazil's Labor and Employment Ministry Primer on Sex Professional, which describes sex work as labor, has been the source of controversy, with some accusing the government of encouraging professional sex work.Want to Be a Prostitute? The Brazilian Government Can Teach You How . Brazzil.com (9 July 2006). Retrieved 9 May 2011.Denver Post: Brazil to tone down prostitution website . Allvoices.com (29 October 2008). Retrieved 9 May 2011. However, this is not the purpose of the site. Rather, the Ministry of Labor site simply lists all of the characteristics of prostitution as work: i.e., what a prostitute is typically expected to do in the course of their labor. The site in no way encourages or "advises" about prostitution.
The press reported at the end of 2008 that a government official has announced that the site would be "toned down" following criticism by the media. 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."Official website gives tips to prostitutes. Metro.co.uk (29 October 2008). Retrieved 9 May 2011.
"Professional of sex" is described as follows: "They [the sex worker] works on their own initiative, in the street, in bars, night-clubs, hotels, harbor, highways and in garimpos (gold prospecting places). They act in different environments: open air, closed places and inside vehicles, in irregular schedules. In the exercise of some of their activities they can be exposed to vehicles gases, to bad weather, to sound pollution and to social discrimination. There are still risks of getting STD infections, bad-treatment, street violence, and death."
History
Prostitution and slavery
After little successful attempts with enslaved Indians, in the 16th century the Portuguese began to import black Africans to Brazil. The slaves also had to be sexually available to their owners, and also to their overseers, friends, relatives, visitors, traveling tradesmen, merchants and others. From there it was only a small step to prostitution with enslaved negroes and mulattoes women and girls. Since slaves were considered as things and not as persons,Clóvis Moura: Dicionário da Escravidão Negra no Brasil, São Paulo, 2004, p. 327 ff, online here. similar 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 minor slave girls in the brothels. 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.Gil Freyre: Casa-Grande & Senzala, 48. Edition, Recife, 2003, p.537 ff. online here. In English: The Masters and the Slaves, p.454, online hereRenata Maria Coimbra Libório, Sônia M. Gomes Sousa: A exploração sexual de crianças e adolescentes no Brasil (Sexual Exploitation of children and teenagers in Brazil), São Paulo, 2004, S. 242ff. Im internet hier. 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. If the stipulated minimum amount was not achieved, the usual punishments on the slaves were carried out.Dicionário da escravidão (WörtDictionary of Slavery), p.227ff.
During the first half of the 19th century the slaves, who were destined for prostitution, were bought directly from the African traders. 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." Even in private classifieds about the sale of private female house slaves, there was often quite unashamedly pointed out to the willingness and sexual subservience of "well-behaved" black and mulatto girls.Luiz Carlos Soares: Prostitution in Nineteenth-Century Rio de Janeiro, University of London, 1988, p.20f Online here.
There were in the 19th century four types of prostitutes. First, the negroes and mulattoes, who had to be prostitutes by orders of their owner. 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 second category were poor free women, often ex-slaves or their daughters, who inhabited miserable huts, and there or on the street they prostituted themselves and their daughters. The third category were foreign girls who had been lured or sold to Brazil under false promises. Although they were free persons in the law, they were treated as slaves, trapped in the brothels, forced into debt bondage, beaten and tortured, when they couldn't earn enough money to pay the debts, the high interest rates, rental fees for their room and the other costs of their life. 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.Luiz Carlos Soares: Prostitution in Nineteenth-Century Rio de Janeiro, University of London, 1988, p.12ff, online here.
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 Lei do Ventre Livre ("Law of the free belly"), according to which children of slaves were no longer slaves themselves, also decided that slaves were allowed to save money, which their master could not arbitrarily take away from them, and with which they could free themselves. As a result, it became more interesting for slave girls to become prostitute, because this way they had a chance to earn a tip for themselves. 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. However, the custody and administration of the savings of a slave was the responsibility of the owner, and he could try to manipulate the savings and list cost and penalties like tricky pimps do. There have been even processes of female slaves against their masters, where the women often had to prove with the help of clients that they had been "industrious" and diligent and had numerous customers, much more as listed in the wrong accounting of the master.
Although there had been several attempts to prohibit prostitution, there were no laws against it. Prostitutes were sometimes charged with being vagabonds and with provoking disorder.
Early 20th century
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. In addition, there were an increasing number of women and girls imported from Europe, especially from the poorer regions of Eastern Europe: Jews, Albanians, Austria-Hungarians, and for a higher price French and Italians.Luiz Carlos Soares: Prostitution in Nineteenth-Century Rio de Janeiro, University of London, 1988, S.17f Im Internet hier. The novels of the well-known Brazilian writer Jorge Amado portray this time; in his books there are often more prostitutes than other women. The peak period of prostitution was around 1930 when the brothels of Rio de Janeiro were famous all over the world. The brothel Casa Rosa is today a cultural center.
Jewish forced prostitutes in Brazil