RED LIGHT RIO is a threaded conversation with fifty women who support themselves and their families with the money they make in Rio’s red light district. The project is an attempt to give the wider public unprecedented access to hear from some of society’s most marginalized and misunderstood members – in their own words. To provide context for the interviews, situating Rio’s red light district in the larger context of prostitution in Rio, the project draws heavily on the research of subject matter experts from Rio’s Observatório da Prostituiçã, including Soraya Simões, Ana Paula da Silva, Thaddeus Blanchette, Greg Mitchell, Laura Murray, Cristiana Schettini, and the late Gabriela Leite.
Last Interview // Quais são seus planos para seu futuro?
Gabi: Aline, in this interview, I want to start with what’s most important. The questions that matter. What are your plans for the future? Gabi, my plan for ...
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“I wish for a much different future for my children”
#3wishes “I wish they had a decent place to work”
#3wishes “I wish for health for my son”
#3wishes “I wish I had a better job”
#3wishes “I would get rid of all the violence here.”
“It would be difficult to leave this behind.”
#3wishes “I wish I could have children”
#3wishes “A better life for my kids”
#3wishes: “I hope my daughter never finds out”
#3wishes: Plastic surgery
#3wishes “I would buy another house”
#3wishes “I wish this was a calmer place”
#3wishes
“Make your money and get out of here”
“We’re people like anyone else”
“How many clients have you had?”
“Tell me about your boyfriend”
“What is your ideal client?”
“What would you change about this place, if you could?”
“This is a dying profession”
“Tell me about love”
Exit Plans
“There is nothing shameful about being a whore”
“Money rules the world”
Allies
“I love this place”
Friends with Benefits
“There are days I don’t sleep”
“Vila Mimosa is a necessary evil.”
“I don’t need a man anymore. For anything.”
Relatório Preliminar: Efeito de Rio2016 na indústria de sexo no Rio de Janeiro
Preliminary report: Impact of Rio2016 on Rio de Janeiro’s sex industry
Prostitution Policy Watch Looks at Olympics Impact on Rio’s Sex Industry
Observatório da Prostituição Analisa Impacto das Olimpíadas Sobre Indústria do Sexo
“Figure out how to pay for your autonomy”
Rules
“Here you can earn your independence.”
Rape: “Ou vai ou morre”
Indianara: “People say that prostitutes have an expiration date.”
Indianara: “It’s more dangerous, in Brazil, to be a wife than a whore.”
Amara: “What is family, inside the travesti universe? What is family for us?”
Amara Moira is a post-doc trans whore who wants you to hear this
Inside Brazil’s Gay Sex Tourism Industry
Do you consider yourself an independent woman?
What do you think of prostitution?
How many children do you support?
“My life got a little better after I came to the Zona”
“I think it’s slavery to depend on someone like that”
Trafficked at 15
Child Abuse
CITED WORK BY Anthropology
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Anthropology 0
Relatório Preliminar: Efeito de Rio2016 na indústria de sexo no Rio de Janeiro
O Observatório da Prostituição publicou pesquisa preliminar sobre o efeito de Rio2016 na indústria de sexo no Rio de Janeiro. Segue embaixo o press release do grupo. Click ...
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Anthropology 0
Preliminary report: Impact of Rio2016 on Rio de Janeiro’s sex industry
Rio de Janeiro’s Prostitution Policy Watch has released preliminary data on the impact of the 2016 Summer Olympics on the sex industry in Rio de Janeiro. Below is ...
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Anthropology 0
Prostitution Policy Watch Looks at Olympics Impact on Rio’s Sex Industry
This summary of research by Rio de Janeiro’s Prostitution Policy Watch on the impact of World Cup on Rio’s sex industry was written by Alex Besser and published ...
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Anthropology 0
Observatório da Prostituição Analisa Impacto das Olimpíadas Sobre Indústria do Sexo
Este resumo da pesquisa do Observatório da Prostituição sobre o efeito da Rio2016 no mercado de sexo no Rio de Janeiro foi escrito por Alex Besser e publicado no ...
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Amara Moira 1
Amara Moira is a post-doc trans whore who wants you to hear this
“My name is Amara Moira, I’m 30 years old, I’m a doctoral candidate at Unicamp. I prostitute myself in Jardim Itatinga. And I recently started a blog.” Amara ...
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Greg Mitchell 0
Inside Brazil’s Gay Sex Tourism Industry
Photo: Sauna Meio Mundo in downtown Rio, courtesy of Dr. Gregory Mitchell Brazil has topped the list of top global destinations for gay tourists for almost a decade. ...
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Gabriela Leite 1
Prostitutes and AIDS
How Brazil’s sex worker rights movement and its Ministry of Health partnered in creating one of the most well-structured and efficient HIV/AIDS prevention programs in the world. This ...
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Laura Murray 1
“I’m happy being a prostitute”
POLITICAL PROSTITUTES AND SHAMEFUL POLITICIANS Laura Murray is a filmmaker, activist and PhD student studying sex worker activism and politics in Brazil. In an expansion on her blog post published at akissforgabriela.com, ...
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Thaddeus Blanchette 0
Police as pimps
Rio anthropologist Thaddeus Blanchette breaks down one of the unspoken facts of prostitution in Rio: the police work as pimps, and the militia provides “security.” In this video ...
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Thaddeus Blanchette 1
The Orgy that Wasn’t
Anthropologist Thaddeus Blanchette at the Federal University Rio de Janeiro of Macaé presents the Observatory of Prostitution’s preliminary findings of research on the World Cup effect on Rio de Janeiro’s sex industry ...
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Anthropology 0
Charter of Principles of the Brazilian Network of Prostitutes
(feature image: Censored by the Ministry of Health: “My biggest wish is for society to see us as citizens.”) The Network considers prostitution a profession, provided it ...
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Anthropology 0
On sex workers and the respect we all deserve
This story by Gabriella Feola was published in Papo de Homem on June 21, 2014 (link) and has been translated into English and published on redlightr.io with permission. Gabriella ...
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Anthropology 1
World Cup was bad business for the vast majority of sex workers in Rio
Observatory of Prostitution – World Cup Preliminary Report The Observatory of Prostitution is pleased to announce the publication of our preliminary report of findings on the World Cup’s ...
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Ana Paula da Silva 5
Observatory of Prostitution report on World Cup sex tourism in Rio
I am honored to be working as a research collaboration with Rio’s Observatory of Prostitution, an extension project of the Metropolitan Ethnographic Lab – LeMetro/IFCS-UFRJ at the Federal ...
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Anthropology 6
100 sex workers illegally arrested, robbed and raped near Rio
Niterói, May 23, 2014 Published in the Observatório da Prostituição (link) I am a research collaborator with the Observatório da Prostituição (Observatory on Prostitution), an extension project of the Metropolitan ...
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Laura Murray 1
Prostitutes protest in Rio’s sister city
In preparation for this summer’s World Cup and the 2016 Olympics, Rio has been undergoing the biggest prostitution crackdown in a generation, closing venues, arresting prostitutes, even seizing ...
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Ana Paula da Silva 3
The Myth of Maria
What is the profile of a Brazilian sex trafficking victim? Brazilian anthropologists Ana Paula da Silva, Thaddeus Blanchette and Andressa Raylane Bento explain how the common face of Brazilian sex trafficking ...
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Ana Paula da Silva 2
Brazilian Sex Trafficking
Is sex trafficking a problem in Brazil? Do Brazilian women get trafficked abroad? Brazilian anthropologists Ana Paula da Silva, Thaddeus Blanchette and Andressa Raylane Bento unpack how a ...
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Cristiana Schettini 1
World Cup Sex Panic
Anthropologist Thaddeus Blanchette and historian Cristiana Schettini provide a history of Rio sex in their 2013 paper, Sex Work in Rio de Janeiro: “More than tolerated – effectively managed”. Published to RED LIGHT ...
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Cristiana Schettini 2
Prostitution Today in Rio
Anthropologist Thaddeus Blanchette and historian Cristiana Schettini provide a history of Rio sex in their 2013 paper, Sex Work in Rio de Janeiro: “More than tolerated – effectively managed”. Published to RED LIGHT ...
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Cristiana Schettini 3
Police as Madams
Anthropologist Thaddeus Blanchette and historian Cristiana Schettini provide a history of Rio sex in their 2013 paper, Sex Work in Rio de Janeiro: “More than tolerated – effectively managed”. Published to RED LIGHT ...
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Cristiana Schettini 4
Prostitution Markets and Sanitation Campaigns
Anthropologists Thaddeus Blanchette and Cristiana Schettini provide a history of Rio sex in their 2013 paper, Sex Work in Rio de Janeiro: “More than tolerated – effectively managed”. Published to RED ...
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Cristiana Schettini 4
Prostitution in Rio: “Not Illegal”
Anthropologist Thaddeus Blanchette and historian Cristiana Schettini provide a history of Rio sex in their 2013 paper, Sex Work in Rio de Janeiro: “More than tolerated – effectively managed”. Published to ...
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Cristiana Schettini 6
A History of Rio Sex
Anthropologist Thaddeus Blanchette and historian Cristiana Schettini provide a history of Rio sex in their 2013 paper, Sex Work in Rio de Janeiro: “More than tolerated – effectively managed”. The ...
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Soraya Simoes 8
Vila Mimosa: An Eviction Timeline
Rio has a history of warring with its prostitutes when tourists come to town that stretches back 100 years. When King Albert of Belgium came to town in ...
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Anthropology 0
Rio’s Prostitution Crackdown
AS RIO DE JANEIRO PREPARES FOR ITS TURN ON THE GLOBAL STAGE– as the host of the World Cup in 2014, then the 2016 Summer Olympics – the ...
