calle siete.

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tacked to our refrigerator is a crude map of the slum market brothels where i volunteered in my early twenties as a part of an outreach to women who prostitute. sounds strange, but my bureaucratic day job is tangentially connected to the issue of prostitution, so i keep abreast of news relating to the world’s oldest profession. i was particularly heart-broken to hear about the el alto protest, which is a visceral reminder of the poverty and lack of opportunities plaguing so many people in prostitution.

between the activist students and the cowed mayor (who is usually one of prostitution’s biggest proponents, seeing as that it is among el alto’s most stable revenue- and tax-generating industries), it sounds as if this situation may be, in part, a classic case of good intentions/terrible repercussions.

a glance at the reuters pictures shows that women in el alto aren’t engaged in prostitution because they suffer from a glut of professional opportunities. el alto is the “last stop” for bolivia’s prostitutes: the old, the infirm, and the unlovely come to the altiplano’s frigid red-light district when they’ve worn out their welcome in other cities. interspersed among them, you can find a few overly-done young women who are working their way through school — and, like their peers, often trying to keep their children fed.

while prostitution is legal in bolivia, it is ghetto-ized and thoroughly unregulated. as i often say, it’s no surprise that a country that has yet to master daily trash pick-up can’t manage to administer monthly HIV/AIDS tests to its registered prostitutes — let alone check to see that all of the women and transgendered men lining calle siete are adults, prostituting of their own free will, not minors or exploited adults.

“free will” is a funny concept — especially in a society that has decided that prostitution is the best economic option it can offer thousands of its female citizens, and a measure of its male citizens, as well.

if you want to do something about it, silence and stillness and prayer are always the best place to start. when meditative disciplines take root, they often lead to action, so when you are ready to give, go here or here.

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Filed under sisters, truth/beauty

Tags: bolivia, children, economics, el alto, family, human trafficking, mothers, prostitution, sex, transgender, women, word made flesh