Prostitution in Peru
Encyclopedia
Legal situation
Prostitution is legal for women over 18 years of age if they register with municipal authorities and carry a health certificate. Brothels must be licensed.Child prostitution is illegal. Penalties for pimps and clients of underage prostitutes range from four to eight years in prison.
Prostitution in practice in Peru
The vast majority of prostitutes work in the informal sector, where they lack health protection. Individual police officers tolerate the operation of unlicensed brothels.Child prostitution
Child prostitution is common throughout the country, and especially in Peru’s isolated Amazonian mining communities. In the Amazonian department of Madre de DiosMadre de Dios Region
Madre de Dios is a region in southeastern Peru, bordering Brazil, Bolivia and the Peruvian regions of Puno, Cusco and Ucayali. Its capital is the city of Puerto Maldonado. The name of the region is a very common Spanish language designation for the Virgin Mary, literally meaning Mother of...
the illegal exploitation of gold
Gold
Gold is a chemical element with the symbol Au and an atomic number of 79. Gold is a dense, soft, shiny, malleable and ductile metal. Pure gold has a bright yellow color and luster traditionally considered attractive, which it maintains without oxidizing in air or water. Chemically, gold is a...
has dramatically increased the recruitment and coercion of adolescents into prostitution through false employment offers.
While poverty
Poverty
Poverty is the lack of a certain amount of material possessions or money. Absolute poverty or destitution is inability to afford basic human needs, which commonly includes clean and fresh water, nutrition, health care, education, clothing and shelter. About 1.7 billion people are estimated to live...
and inequality
Economic inequality
Economic inequality comprises all disparities in the distribution of economic assets and income. The term typically refers to inequality among individuals and groups within a society, but can also refer to inequality among countries. The issue of economic inequality is related to the ideas of...
are important causes of child prostitution, part of the problem is also a social attitude that views sex--including paid sex--between adult men and adolescent girls as normal.
Luis Gonzalez-Polar Zuzunada, president of La Restinga (an Iquitos
Iquitos
Iquitos is the largest city in the Peruvian rainforest, with a population of 370,962. It is the capital of Loreto Region and Maynas Province.Located on the Amazon River, it is only above sea level, although it is more than from the mouth of the Amazon at Belém on the Atlantic Ocean...
-based nonprofit organization that works with at-risk children) said about teenage prostitution:"It's not seen as a crime. People think that's the way it is. Here, anyone is a potential client."
The Peruvian government recognizes child sex tourism
Child sex tourism
Child sex tourism is tourism for the purpose of engaging in the prostitution of children, that is commercially-facilitated child sexual abuse...
to be a problem, particularly in Iquitos
Iquitos
Iquitos is the largest city in the Peruvian rainforest, with a population of 370,962. It is the capital of Loreto Region and Maynas Province.Located on the Amazon River, it is only above sea level, although it is more than from the mouth of the Amazon at Belém on the Atlantic Ocean...
, Madre de Dios
Madre de Dios Region
Madre de Dios is a region in southeastern Peru, bordering Brazil, Bolivia and the Peruvian regions of Puno, Cusco and Ucayali. Its capital is the city of Puerto Maldonado. The name of the region is a very common Spanish language designation for the Virgin Mary, literally meaning Mother of...
, and Cuzco.
Human trafficking
Peru is a source, transit point, and destination for traffickedHuman trafficking
Human trafficking is the illegal trade of human beings for the purposes of reproductive slavery, commercial sexual exploitation, forced labor, or a modern-day form of slavery...
persons. The majority of human trafficking occurs within the country.
Many trafficking victims are women and girls from impoverished rural regions of the Amazon, recruited and coerced into prostitution in urban nightclubs, bars, and brothels, often through false employment offers or promises of education.
Domestic trafficking occurres particularly in districts located in the Andes
Andes
The Andes is the world's longest continental mountain range. It is a continual range of highlands along the western coast of South America. This range is about long, about to wide , and of an average height of about .Along its length, the Andes is split into several ranges, which are separated...
or the Amazon jungle, to bring underage girls into cities or mining areas to work as prostitutes. Victims are recruited by friends or acquaintances and through newspaper and Internet
Internet
The Internet is a global system of interconnected computer networks that use the standard Internet protocol suite to serve billions of users worldwide...
advertisements or street posters offering employment; some victims are recruited by local employment agencies that offer poor young women from rural areas relatively well-paid "restaurant work" in Lima
Lima
Lima is the capital and the largest city of Peru. It is located in the valleys of the Chillón, Rímac and Lurín rivers, in the central part of the country, on a desert coast overlooking the Pacific Ocean. Together with the seaport of Callao, it forms a contiguous urban area known as the Lima...
, Cusco
Cusco
Cusco , often spelled Cuzco , is a city in southeastern Peru, near the Urubamba Valley of the Andes mountain range. It is the capital of the Cusco Region as well as the Cuzco Province. In 2007, the city had a population of 358,935 which was triple the figure of 20 years ago...
, major coastal cities, and abroad.
The principal victims and groups at high risk for trafficking are children and young women from rural or poor urban areas, persons living in poverty, persons with disabilities, victims of domestic abuse, illiterate persons, and persons lacking birth certificates or other identification documents.
Peru also is
a destination country for some Ecuadorian and Bolivian
Bolivia
Bolivia officially known as Plurinational State of Bolivia , is a landlocked country in central South America. It is the poorest country in South America...
women trafficked for commercial sexual exploitation.