Tales of child prostitutes
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By Chris Rogers
Her small bikini exposes her tiny frame. She looks no older than 13 - one of dozens of girls parading the street looking for clients in the blazing mid-afternoon sun. Most come from the surrounding favelas - or slums.
As I park my car, the young girl dances provocatively to catch my attention.
"Hello my name is Clemie - you want a programme?" she asks, programme being the code word they use for an hour of sex. Clemie asks for less than $5 (£3) for her services. An older woman standing nearby steps in and introduces herself as Clemie’s mother.
"You have the choice of another two girls, they are the same age as my daughter, the same price," she explains. "I can take you to a local motel where a room can be rented by the hour."
I make my excuses and head towards the bars and brothels of the nearby red-light district.
Despite assurances of a police crackdown, there appears to be little evidence of child prostitution disappearing from the streets of Recife. In four years’ time, the country will be hosting the World Cup, which will fuel its booming economy.
Brazil has defied the global economic downturn thanks, in part, to its exotic, endless beaches attracting record numbers of tourists. The country’s erotic reputation has long been attracting an unwanted type of tourist. Every week specialist holiday operators bring in thousands of European singles on charted flights looking for cheap sex. Now Brazil is overtaking Thailand as the world’s most popular sex-tourist destination.
As night falls, the sex tourist’s playground in Recife, in the state of Pernambuco, comes alive. Prostitutes mingle with tourists, dancing at their sides and eyeing up potential business. The legal age for prostitution is 18, but many look much younger.
Taxi drivers work with the girls who are too young to get into the bars. One offers me two for the price of one and a lift to a local motel.
"They are underage, so much cheaper than the older ones," he explains as he introduces me to Sara and Maria.
Neither has made any attempt to disguise their age. One clings to a bright pink Barbie bag, and they hold each other’s hands looking terrified at the possibility of potential custom.
Recife’s red-light area is now crammed with cars slowly crawling past groups of girls parading their bodies.
One of them, Pia, is dressed in a cropped pink top and mini skirt. The 13-year-old agrees to speak to me about her life as a child prostitute. She explains that she works from the same street corner every night until dawn to fund her and her mother’s crack cocaine habit.
"I usually have more than 10 clients per night," she boasts. "They pay 10 reais ($5.50, Sh385) each - enough for a rock of crack."
For safety, Pia works with a group of older girls who act as pimps, taking care of the money and watching over the younger ones.
"There’s lots of girls working around here. I’m not the youngest, my sister is 12, and there’s an 11-year-old." But Pia is worried about her sister: "Bianca hasn’t been seen for two days since she left with a foreign guy," she says.
Pia first started working as a prostitute at the age of seven, and Unicef estimates there are 250,000 child prostitutes like her in Brazil.
"I’ve been doing it for so long now, I don’t even think about the dangers," Pia tells me. "Foreign guys just show up here. I’ve been with lots of them. They just show up like you."
Just a couple of streets away the pavement is lined with transvestites touting for clients. Among them 14-year-old Ronison and 12-year-old Ivan. The cousins look convincing in their stilettos, mini skirts and blouses, and heavy make up.
"We need to earn money to buy rice and staple foods for our families," Ronison explains as he flicks back his long bobbed hair. "Our parents don’t worry about us too much. We tell them when we are leaving and when we’re coming back. And then we give the money to them to buy food. They know how we get the money, we just don’t discuss it"
Twelve-year-old Maria wants to live with her mother but she can’t because her pimp, who forced her to work on the streets and in brothels, threatened to kill her if she tried to escape. She told me that she is still terrified for her life.
Pia told me that one day she hopes to break out of prostitution.
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