Prostitution in Venezuela

Sex work in Venezuela is closely tied to its economic history and the history of oil production. Venezuela received an influx of population after the first significant oil wells were drilled in the beginning of the 20th century.[2] The presence of relatively well-paid foreign oil workers greatly expanded the sex trade in port cities. In particular, black women of a lower socioeconomic class who could not get jobs as domestics or selling sweets and candies as street vendors in urban areas turned to prostitution for money.[3]

Women and girls from surrounding Andean states, in particular Colombia, were also recruited to come to Venezuela and sometimes forced to work in the sex trade. Prostitution became a big business and women from the Caribbean and even Europe (notably Holland, France, and Belgium) came to Venezuela looking for work.[2] Black women made up the majority of sex workers until the 1920s when French women took over the prostitution district of Silencio in Caracas and the port cities of La Guiara and Puerto Cabello. Guajiro Indian women outnumbered black or European sex workers in Maracaibo.[3]

Establishments frequented by oilmen like the famous Pavilion opened up as combination bar, brothels, and dance hall. Sex workers from rural areas would also be transported to oil towns on Saturdays, “where workers lined the docks to greet them by name.”[2]^(p101)Some companies even began dispensing condoms, and city leaders began to regulate and limit the trade. They classified the activity, applied a city tax to the work, and required weekly medical examinations of the sex workers.

The city also began to require that workers carry health cards with them. In 1930, an anti-venereal institute conducted a census of major towns in the state, and prostitutes were required to report where they worked to local offices. Some upper-class sex workers had access to private doctors for regular exams. A market for local remedies to venereal diseased developed, but the rate of STIs continued to increase. In 1935, the government made the first Sunday in September Anti-Venereal Disease Day. By 1947, the government estimated that 64 percent of hospital patients had syphilis, and 37 percent of patients had other venereal diseases such as chancroid (chancre blando). A Ministry of Health report showed that the office needed over 3 million units of penicillin at any given time for the treatment of syphilis. Oil companies started testing and firing employees with syphilis until unions got involved and called for treatment without termination. Eventually, the public's sense of morality was offended by the effects of the growing sex trade, and night clubs with prostitutes and brothels were moved from downtown to red light districts on the outskirts of cities. Many ended up between large Shell and Lago urban camps, which continued to supply them with “innumerable patrons.”[2]^(p67)

Prostitution is currently legal in Venezuela. In March 2007, the Organic Law on the Right of Women to a Life Free of Violence criminalized trafficking and forced prostitution, among other forms of gender-based violence. Trafficking can now result in up to 20 years of penalties for coercing a victim to perform a sexual act against their will for a third party. Inducing child prostitution and the “corruption of minors” is penalized with three to 18 months in prison or up to four years in prison if the minor is under 12. Sentences increase to up to six years if the crime is recurrently committed.[7]

Venezuela's Ministry of Health and Social Development (Ministerio de Salud y Desarrollo Social) requires that women working as sex workers in nightclubs have a free monthly health check. The check includes a gynecological exam and a syphilis screening. HIV tests are required every six months. Sex workers are not screened for infections caused by the hepatitis B or C viruses.[8]

There have been no large-scale studies in order to collect demographic information about sex workers in Venezuela. A study of 212 sex workers conducted in 2003 evaluated at a health center in a city near Caracas found that 91% of workers were Venezuelan. The rest of the workers came from Colombia, the Dominican Republic, and Ecuador. The workers had an average age of 29.6 and an average of 2.12 children. 55.7% had one or two children. 53% of the women dropped out of secondary school.[8]

Over 80% of the workers had had sexual intercourse before the age of 19. 44.1% of the women previously had an abortion. 41.7% used condoms all the time, 20.7% on occasion, and 36.5% reported that they never used condoms.[8]

Special scholarly attention has been paid to the lives of trans sex workers in Venezuela, called travesti. Travesti are people who are assigned male at birth but who present in their daily lives as women. Some consider the term an insult, but it is also used by travesti as a self-identification.

Studies have reported a problematic relationship between the Policía Metropolitana de Caracas (PM) and transformista sex workers. Transformistas face the problem of officer impunity and a culture of silence.[9][10] When asked what she would do if a police officer assaulted her, a transformista responded "The PM?! Ay no. Because then when they see you on the street, just imagine.”[10]^(p148) The travesti face a penal system in which a complaint does not change police behavior but rather serves as a marker for possible future aggressions. However, the number of LGBT organizations in Venezuela has grown in the past decade, including organizations that advocate specifically for trans people and travesti sex workers.

Marianela Tovar, an LGBT activist in Caracas at the organization Contranatura, explains that travesti experience violence from police and clients of sex work but still feel forced to do sex work because “it’s the only way that they can be their true gender identity.” [9]^(p102) In other professions common for women in Venezuela, such as nursing, trans women would not be able to present as their chosen gender identity.

Venezuela is a source and destination country for women and children subjected to sex trafficking. As the economic situation deteriorated, the mass migration of Venezuelans to neighboring countries increased. During the reporting period, alleged victims of trafficking from Venezuela were identified in Aruba, Colombia, Costa Rica, Curacao, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Greece, Portugal, Guyana, Mexico, Panama, Peru, Spain, Suriname, and Trinidad and Tobago. Venezuelan women and girls, including some lured from poor interior regions to urban and tourist centers, are subjected to sex trafficking and child sex tourism within the country. Venezuelan officials and international organizations have reported identifying sex trafficking victims from South American, Caribbean, Asian, and African countries in Venezuela. Venezuelan officials reported an increase of sex trafficking in the informal mining sector.[12]

The United States Department of State Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons ranks Venezuela as a 'Tier 3' country.[12]