Later, we started selling celery, but when we couldn't sell enough, my mom almost beat us to death. A few years ago, I started to have sexual relations, which leave me with a bit of money for me and my house," says R. Few Chileans admit that child prostitution exists, but a handful of young professionals are trying to put the issue on the country's social agenda.
It's an uphill struggle, the only reward when a child breaks free of the streets and manages to lead a healthy adult life. Boris Yopo, a sociologist, estimated that prostitution is essential to the survival of 50, children, although other professionals believe this figure is too high. Like R. They live on the streets," says Ana Maria Moya, who has worked with prostitutes for 14 years. She says the children work from 1 to 3 p. Children as young as 8 service clients in bus terminals, on highways, in cars, bars and squalid hotels.
Mostly they work alone, their only support a tightly knit peer group, fiercely loyal to anyone who has passed their violent initiation rites. The girls who find "protection" working a local bar are drawn into "a system of slavery," says Moya. If a girl doesn't make her weekly quota, the price of the unsold drinks is docked from her wages. Adult prostitution is legal in Chile, although prostitutes are often arrested for "offenses against morality. Prostitutes over 18 are regularly tested and treated for sexually transmitted diseases, including AIDS.
The National Health Service provides an identity card, certifying health. Because authorities don't recognize child prostitution, people under 18 have no access to this service. Culturally, men's use of prostitutes is widely accepted. Many still take their sons to a prostitute for initiation, and many a young man has one "pure" girlfriend and another for sexual relations. Moya mentions a recent seminar at which a prominent woman psychiatrist argued that "prostitutes are necessary because there are some things that men just can't do with their wives.
In practice, this double standard means that prostitutes, rather than their customers, face constant harassment, detention, abuse. So contradictory are the norms, says Paulina Vidal, a sociologist working with adult prostitutes, that police have arrested women for carrying condoms.
