Little Girls of the Night

The girls are attracted by promises of work
in a restaurant or luncheonette, but then are sent to
work in night clubs in faraway places in the Amazon.
Even the more experienced girls, who know that they
are going to sell their bodies, have little idea of the
regime of slavery that awaits them.
On the night of Sep- tember 23, 1991, the Sdo Bar- tolomeu-one of the small steamboats that ply
the Amazonian rivers–
sails to Laranjal do Jari in
the northern reaches of
Brazil. The voyage lasts
three days and two nights.
The passengers lie in
hammocks hooked up to
poles. Besides passen-
gers, the boat transports
goods through the river-
ine regions. This voyage,
however, has a shipment
of special merchandise: a
lot of girls who, without
knowing it, are destined
to become prostitutes.
Fifteen-year-old Maria Sanchez has lived in the streets of Manaus since she was eight. Very early on, she learned that she could earn money on the sidewalk. “I learned how to change diapers with my
son, ” Maria says. “I never had a doll to change. ”
Such a shipment is special, but not truly exceptional
for the boats that navigate these rivers.
Twelve girls-among them, Ana Meire Lima da
Silva, age 15, and Miriam Ferreira dos Santos, 14-
make up part of the cargo. They were persuaded to go
with promises of work in a restaurant or luncheonette.
“These girls were naive,” says Elaine, a more expe-
rienced prostitute who was involved in the ruse but is
convinced that she didn’t do anything wrong. “They
knew nothing.”
A terrible reception
awaits them. Bucho de
Bode (“Goat Belly”), a
brothel owner, is wait-
ing for them at the port.
As the ship docked,
Ana Meire remembers
hearing catcalls from
men on the footbridges:
“Hmm, some fresh
meat… She’s for me…
She turns me on… I’m
going to suck you up
whole.”
This welcome is part
of a ritual. Each time
that girls debark at the
port, there is a true fes-
tival. That night, all the
men argue among them-
selves over who will
have the privilege of being the first to eat the “fresh
meat.” New arrivals to Laranjal do Jari are highly val-
ued by clients. In this unhealthly atmosphere, prosti-
tutes rapidly lose value, which, in the words of one
pimp, demands a constant “resupply of goods.” When
clients tire of a product, the moment has arrived to sell
the girls according to the rule of “transfer.” The girls
move, therefore, from one region of the Amazon to
another, from one garimpo-mining community-to
the next.
I invite the reader to share with me the voyage along
these routes of trafficking in people, which will lead
us into the secrets of child prostitution found through-
out Brazil. The Brazilian Center for Childhood and
Adolescence (CBIA) of the Ministry of Social Ser-
VoL XXVII, No 6 MAY/JUNE 1994
Gilberto Dimenstein is a Brazilian reporter for Folha de Sao Paulo. He is author of Brazil: War on Children (Latin America Bureau/Monthly Review Press, 1991). This article is adapted
from his book Meninas da Noite (Editora Atica S.A., 1992).
Translated from the Portuguese by NACLA.
29REPORT ON CHILDREN
vices estimates that there are 500,000 girl prostitutes
in the country.
The setting of this particular voyage is exotic,
unknown and largely inaccessible: the legal Amazon
in the northwest of Brazil, which comprises close to
61% of the national territory. The Amazon has been a
magnet for migration, which has changed the face of
the region with extraordinary speed. Men and women
with fair skin and blonde hair, from the South, mix
with Amazonian mestizos, producing a mixture of
skin colors, foods and expressions. Most of these
migrants are looking for land; others are attracted by
Cacilda Duarte, a 16-year old prostitute in Cuiabi, says she has tried to find other work, but that she has never managed to keep the same job for very long. “I think it’s because of my tat-
toos,” she says. “If I didn’t have them, everything would be
better.”
gold. According to the most recent census, Amazonia
registered the highest rate of population growth in the
country: the state of Roraima (9.1%), Rond6nia
(7.9%), Mato Grosso (5.4%), and Pard (3.4%).
Protected by nature and difficult to access by land or
by air (there have been countless airplane accidents),
the Amazonian jungle creates states within a state.
The law is dictated there by those who are the boldest,
the best armed, and have the best pistoleiros (hired
guns). The traffic in girls forced into prostitution is
testimony to the chaotic and inhumane character of
this migration.
The girls are attracted by the promise of licit
employment, but then are sent to work in night clubs
in these faraway, inaccessible places, and kept captive
like prisoners. Even the more experienced girls, who
are not new to prostitution, are tricked. By contrast
with the more naive girls, they know that they are
going to sell their bodies, but they have little idea of
the regime of slavery that awaits them.
Everything rests upon the debt-a bottomless pit.
From the moment the girl arrives at the club, she is
told that she owes money: her plane or boat ticket, which can be as much as $100. She cannot leave until
this debt is paid off. The debt grows with the purchase
of clothes, perfumes, medicine and food furnished by
the club owner at an arbitrary price.
Without the girls realizing it, the owner keeps track
of their expenditures using as a base the value of a
gram of gold. The debt snowballs, especially when the
girls fall sick-a common occurrence in this region
ravaged by malaria. During the time they cannot
“work,” the debt piles up. Money from clients does
not pass through the girls’ hands; it goes, instead,
directly to the cashbox.
In the majority of cases, the debt cannot be repaid,
and escape attempts are severely punished. The girl
regains her freedom only if she is sick, pregnant, or
can no longer attract clients. Occasionally, a client
will pay for a girl’s release. Luisa Ribeiro Soares, a
prostitute in Laranjal do Jari, received help from a
lover who wanted to live with her. He helped pay her
debt by buying back her “transfer,” the equivalent of
the certificate of emancipation given to slaves in the
last century. In this milieu, the power to buy freedom
bestows great importance on the pimps.
Many paths lead to prostitution. “Poverty push-
es the girls into the street,” says Lurdes au
Bar Jardim, the director of the Group of
Female Prostitutes of the Center of Bel6m (GEM-
PAC). “They have nothing to sell. They don’t know
how to read or write or cook. They can sell the only
valuable thing they possess: their body.”
At times, the first step is linked to drug trafficking.
A number of girls have become addicted to “mela,” a
kind of crack cocaine. “The girls are used as formigu-
inhas (little ants),” says Captain Luiz Cliudio Azam-
buja, head of the Department of Children and Adoles-
cents of the military police of the state of Rond6nia in
the Amazon. “They carry the drugs to protect the
adults.” The girls start by becoming addicted, and then
they are used as formiguinhas and prostitute them-
selves to feed their vice and to try to wipe out an end-
less debt.
Another road to prostitution: a girl falls in love with
someone whom her family does not accept. As a con-
sequence, the family kicks her out. Without any skills, she has no alternative but to sell her body to survive.
This is what happened to Adriana Pereira Lima, who
works at a brothel in Laranjal do Jari. Her family
rejected her after she lost her virginity. The street
recovered her. Today, Adriana asks herself: “My
dream is to have a husband, kids and a job. But where
can I work since I didn’t go to school?”
NACIA REPORT ON THE AMERICAS 30REPORT ON CHILDREN
Family problems drive many girls onto the street.
Of the 53 girls and adolescents that I interviewed, 50
came from broken homes. Here are some numbers:
80% have no contact with their father; the parents of
30% of the girls are dead; 35% say they have suffered
sexual abuse in the home and point to the stepfather as
the principal abuser; and 50% say that alcoholism is a
problem in their family. The girls all dream of a
happy family, but their hopes are poignantly modest.
When I asked one young girl to describe her ideal
father, she thought a long time before replying: “This
father would only hit me at certain times.”
Francineide Luiza Cavalcanti, 14, is a product of the
disintegration of the family. “I left my home because
of my step-father,” she says. “Each time my mom
went out, he wanted to kiss me. I complained to my
mom, but she did nothing. So I left and didn’t come
back. I prefer the street.”
Indeed a number of girls consider prostitution an
avenue to freedom. They are fleeing the oppression of
a patriarchal household, where it is not uncommon for
Olga Magalhies works as a prostitute in Cui6-Cui&. She shows symptoms of venereal disease, and she is also sick with malaria. Asked if she knows what a condom is, she replies with a ques- tion:”A condom?”
the family to be in conflict and often violent. In some
cases, the girls are trying to escape boring, poorly paid
jobs. They are seduced by the dream of having a room
of their own and earning more money.
Claudia Amaral, age 13, came to Beiradao to work
as a maid for a couple. She stayed in the city as a maid
during the daytime. At night, however, she came to
the night club to realize her deepest desire: to dance.
Claudia convinces me that she truly doesn’t want to
leave the brothel. She is happy dancing and meeting
new people, all of which gives her a sense of freedom.
It is better, she says, than the tiring work of a maid.
But the street is not an easy school. The girls are
obliged to submit to the depravations of their clients
and the blackmail of police officers who demand sex
from the girls without paying.
The girls sorely lack information. Of those 53 girls I
interviewed, barely 15% use contraceptive methods and
just 5% regularly use condoms. Most of the girls did
not have the least idea how their bodies function or of
the risks of pregnancy. Forty percent had already self-
induced abortions by the most rudimentary methods-
such as blows to the stomach, knitting needles, or inap-
propriate medicine (such as quinine for malaria). Others
had abandoned their newborns in the hope that some-
one would pick the infants up and care for them.
Violence is a common reality. Students at the Feder-
al University of Pard did a study in the garimpo zones
in 1991. Their report contains the testimony of a man
from Santar6m who frequented the brothels during his
travels. He describes the violence he encountered:
“The girls are submitted to all kinds of torture and
exploitation, regardless of their skin color. When they
refuse, they are mistreated-violently beaten, their hair
cut with a machete, and sometimes even killed. One
girl demanded money from a john with whom she’d
just slept. She died from two gunshots in the vagina.”
Ines Pinho de Carvalho, from the Pastoral Office of
Minors in Santar6m, can no longer recall how many
girls she has helped liberate nor how many families
have come to her in search of their children. One case
in particular made a strong impression on her. Ines
helped to free Ldcia Figueira, age 13, who was sent to
the garimpos in the Itaituba region.
After her release, L6cia told Ines what had hap-
pened to her. The night-club owner was angry at her
because of her escape attempts. One day when he was
more furious than usual, he tied her to the back of his
car and dragged her through the streets. “That wasn’t
enough for him,” L6cia confided in Ines. “Afterwards,
he put lemon on my wounds.”
This violence is sometimes turned inwards. Self-
mutilation-a cry for attention-is a common form of
self-punishment. Students from the Faculty of Peda-
gogy at the Federal University of Mato Grosso did a
study of the girls of Praqa do Porto in Cuiabd, under
the direction of the psychologist Katia Marques.
“When a girl falls in love with a boy,” says their
report, “he becomes her gigolo. She shares her earn-
ings with him. However, the girls don’t know how to
master their frustrations when they are in love and are
treated badly. For this reason, they beat themselves.
They become totally masochistic.”
n this route of human trafficking, a virgin is worth
more than others. Maria Dalva Bandeira, a former
teacher who studied in her adolescence to become
a nun, organizes a well-known auction of virgins at La
Casa da Dalva, a brothel in Imperatriz that specializes
in virgins. When a girl arrives who is still “sealed”-
to use the expression of the trade-the whole city is
told about it. The person who pays the most has the
right to be the first.
The men gather in the salon. Dalva then presents the
girl, who has been dressed up in new and seductive
NACIA REPORT ON THE AMERICAS 32REPORT ON CHILDREN
clothes, and has had her face made up and her hair
styled. Immediately after the presentation, the girl
returns to her room.
The auction then begins. The highest bid is usually
placed by a son of the fazendeiros-the rich landown-
ers. The following day is a big event for these rich
young men. To deflower a virgin is a mark of social
status.
Along the row of brothels where the Casa da Dalva
is located, most of the prostitutes are young girls. The
reason is simple: by age 18, a prostitute is a finished
woman, eaten away by illnesses. It’s necessary, then, to bring in new labor.
The garimpeiros-the gold dig-
gers-call women over 18 years
“chickens,” and younger girls
“chicks.” The psychologist Maria
Luiza Pinheiro, from the Brazilian
Center for Childhood and Adoles-
cence, frequently travels the routes of
this traffic. She has often heard the
men who chase the “chicks” say, “I
had myself one of 15 kilograms (33
pounds). It was good.”
Just as I’m about to go home after
talking to some girls on a street in
downtown Manaus, a child comes up
to me and tugs at my shirt sleeve.
“Mister, aren’t you going to inter-
view me?” she asks. It is then that I
realize that she is a little girl. Scarcely
12 years old, she already has a nom
de guerre-Cristiane-like the other
prostitutes. Her real name is Edvalda
Pereira da Silva. Like most of the
girls of the street, she has already
been beaten up by the police. She
says that one of them kicked her in
the stomach because she had called
him a “son of a bitch.”
Edvalda knows what a condom is, but she doesn’t use them. “They say
that if you don’t use them, you’ll catch a kind of
AIDS,” she says, “but I don’t believe it.”
Edvalda has already learned some of the tricks of
the trade. Another girl has explained to her that she
must be paid in advance. Her price is 7,000 cruzeiros
(nine dollars) a “program.” I ask her a deliberately
naive question: “Little one, have you already done
programs?”
Edvalda bursts out laughing. She says that her
mother works in Itamarac–a red-light zone-and
she doesn’t care if Edvalda turns tricks. “I am differ-
ent than the other prostitutes,” she adds. “Do you
know why?”
I tell her that I don’t have the faintest idea.
Her response takes me by surprise. She lifts up her
blouse, which is so big that it functions as a dress, and
says laughing: “I don’t have breasts yet.”
Edvalda and other girls I interviewed confirm the
suspicions of specialists, even though statistical stud-
ies have not yet been done: the average age of the girls
who fall into prostitution is dropping. They are
becoming younger at the same rate as the total number
of street kids is growing. Sex becomes an occasional
source of revenue even for children.
One obvious result is the girls’ total ignorance of the
risks they run. The Ministry of Social Services carried
out a study in Manaus of women from 16 to 40 years
old. They found that 80% of the women didn’t know
their own bodies and didn’t understand how someone
becomes pregnant or how to avoid it. One imagines, then, how little is known by young girls like Edvalda.
o escape requires courage and above all imagi-
nation. One war-like operation succeeded in
freeing Maria Madalena Costa de Oliveira. Her
misadventure began on April 28, 1991, in Altamira,
when a couple, Walmir and Marisa, invited her to
come work as a domestic employee in Itaituba. She
was told she would earn 30 grams of gold per month.
Vol XXVII, No 6 MAY/JUNE 199433 VOL XXVII, No 6 MAY/JUNE 1994 33REPORT ON CHILDREN
On May 4, she arrived at the Miranda Hotel in
Itaituba. There she met five other girls. An unpleasant
surprise was not long in coming. Early in the morning,
Walmir told the girls that they would not be staying in
the city, but would go to the garimpo. If they wanted
to bail out, it wasn’t a problem. But first they had to
pay the debt they had incurred for their plane ticket
and lodging. The girls resigned themselves to going.
They flew to Cuiti-Cuifi, where the pimp Tampinha
was waiting for them on the runway.
Then they encountered the second unpleasant sur-
prise of the trip: they had to work in the Matador night
club. “Those were infernal nights,” recounts Maria
When Raimunda (in window) came home one day and could
not find 12-year-old Maria Luiza da Silva, she feared that her daughter had become the latest victim of the trafficking in girls.
The police found Maria Luiza preparing to cross the river to Porto Velho, site of the brothels. “I was only going for a walk,” Maria Luiza retorts.
Madalena. “They forced us to sleep with several men.
They made us perform homosexual acts and pose for
photos.”
Three months later, Maria Madalena-accompanied
by her friends Tdnia and Maria de Fitima-escaped
with the help of two garimpeiros. After two nights and
a day on the run, they were hungry and exhausted.
They arrived at the plantation of Edmar Pereira, where
they asked for food. It was a bad idea: the landowner
returned them to his friend Tampinha for 49 grams of
gold.
Maria Madalena didn’t lose hope. In a letter to her
sister in Altamira, she detailed her predicament and
called for help. A sick prostitute left for Altamira with
Maria Madalena’s letter hidden in her luggage. With
this letter in hand, her sister Raimunda Holanda
looked for the judge Vera Aradijo de Souza and for the
federal police.
On November 25, with the judge’s court order, a
police commissioner left to look for Maria Madalena
in Cuidi-Cuiti. As she was leaving, Tampinha threat-
ened the girl. “He said to me that if I told anything, he
would kill me,” she says. “He said that if he wanted
to, he could kill me right there and bury me. That all
he had to do was give some gold to the police com-
missioner and everything would be forgotten.” The
story of Maria Madalena sums up the climate of
impunity that envelopes the trafficking and slavery of
women forced into prostitution.
ister Dineva, from the Center for the Defense of
Minors in Cuiabd, the capital of Mato Grosso,
gives me an example of the cruelty of these
power games: Jociane Silva dos Santos. Jociane is just
nine years old. She is an orphan. Her mother had
already passed away when her father died in Decem-
ber, 1991. At night, Jociane sleeps in a government
home for abandoned children in Mato Grosso. The
home is not very safe. Pimps keep watch in front of
the building, waiting for the girls with offers of “pro-
tection and money.” In the daytime, Jociane wanders
around the plaza.
The street educators and Sister Dineva are worried
about Jociane. She is already hanging out with an
older girl who has decided to “sponsor” her. For all
practical purposes, Jociane is ready to enter the “mar-
ket,” negotiating what she has of highest value: her
virginity, an expensive commodity.
“I don’t know how much longer we can maintain
control,” laments the nun, as she points a finger at the
girl who is sponsoring Jocaine.
Jociane approaches us. I ask the usual questions: the
names of her father and mother, place of birth, work-
place, childhood memories, perception of violence,
how she feels among these girls.
I ask her if she knows what AIDS is. She answers
yes. I persist: “What is it?”
“It’s a sickness that comes from the river,” Jociane
replies. “They tell people not to drink this water
because of AIDS.”
Mixing up AIDS and cholera highlights the igno-
rance of children like Jociane and their inability to
manage not only their sex, but also their entire life.
They collect trauma after trauma, rejection after rejec-
tion.
I heard an utterance that best expressed the deep
scar left by child prostitution when I was doing
research for an earlier book at the Casa da Passagem,
a shelter in Recife. After telling her story, which was a
tissue of trauma, frustration and violence, a young girl
asked: “Is it possible to be born a second time?” For
the little girls of the night, their first passage on this
earth has been a tale of misery.