VENEZUELA-WOMEN: Economic Crisis Triples Number of Prostitutes

By Humberto Márquez Reprint | | Print |

CARACAS, Sep 25 1996 (IPS) - Venezuela’s faltering economy and soaring inflation has forced women to turn to prostitution and the ranks of the world’s “oldest profession” has tripled in the past three years, according to Health Ministry offficials and non- governmental organisations (NGOs).

Venezuela, with a population of 22 million people, now has “some 500,000 sex workers,” says Nurys Pernia, director of Ambar – an NGO working to defend the rights of prostitutes. This figure has actually been growing since 1983 and has reversed the previous ratio when there were more foreign prostitutes here than locals.

Mopre worrying, says another NGO – the Community Apprenticeship Centre – 40,000 children and adolescents under the age of 18, also are involved in prostitution networks in Venezuela, although their doubly illegal status tends to make them “invisible.”

In the last three years, “the economic crisis, and rocketing inflation have increased the number of people seeking to earn money as sex workers,” said Pernia.

The non-oil economy of Venezuela has been sliding since 1993, while the population has been growing at a year to year rate of 2.5 percent. Inflation, the highest in Latin America, dropped from a 1994 level of 71 percent to 57 percent last year but is running at 77 percent in 1996.

A study by the Ministry of Health, which was begun in 1995, registered 313,777 prostitutes, compared with 117,000 in 1993, according to the Caracas daily ‘El Nacional,’ but Pernia said this survey overlooked “hidden” prostitution.

Doctors from the ministry examined 106,000 prostitutes in 1995 and found that 10,000 women had sexually transmitted diseases, including 891 cases of syphilis and 17 HIV positive cases.

In Caracas, a city with three million inhabitants, a survey of nearly 36,000 prostitutes found that 62 of every 100 sex workers were Venezuelan – 23 Colombian, 11 Dominican and three Ecuadoran – and that half of them had been working in the trade for less than five years.

Some 31 percent had only completed six years of primary education, 45 percent had never finished secondary school, while 11 percent finished secondary, seven percent had higher education, and only one percent were illiterate – compared with a national average of eight percent.

The study also showed 23 percent of prositutes surveyed were aged 30 to 35, while 26 percent were between 36 and 41 years-old, and 19 percent aged between 42 and 47. Some 63 percent of these women live exclusively from prostitution, while the rest had other jobs, generally in the informal economy, like selling cosmetics or clothes door to door.

The prostiutes worked in various places including the streets, , brothels, hotels, bars and massage parlours. Some 26 percent of the women serviced between six and 11 clients per week, 20 percent handles between 12 and 17 men while the most active 17 percent dealt with more than 30, and the least active 13 percent, less than five.

Only eight percent of the women surveyed were childless, while 62 percent have one or two children, 29 percent have between three and five, and one percent from five to seven; 73 percent have no stable partner.

A high 88 percent of the prostiutes supported at least five people on their earnings, while 12 percent supported between six and 12 people. The poorest sex workers, like those who work the bars around the interurban bus terminal in central Caracas, earned only six dollars for a brief session with a client who also paid two dollars extra for the use of the room.

Women working in massage parlours and operating by cell-phone as “call girls” charge more than 60 dollars per hour which is “three times what I’d get in a factory,” said a 24 year-old woman attending Ambar’s self-esteem classes. She maintains her mother, a brother and two children on her income.

Around 83 percent of those interviewed said they would like to leave the job. 58 percent would like to “set up a business,” eight percent would like a stable job and another similar amount would like to continue with their studies or buy a house.

While 25 percent started off in the profession on their own initiative, 56 percent were introduced by friends.

Secrecy is a key part of their lives, and the families of three quarters of the prostitutes do not know how they make their money.