RANGOON - Cherry and Kay Kay walk into room Number Two of a Rangoon karaoke bar, where a man waits alone for them on a brown leather sofa.
"Come on, girls. Sing, please," he says, as they flick the karaoke machine to a Burma folk song they hope he likes.
The scene may not be uncommon in many parts of Asia, but was until recently rare here in isolated Burma, where economic desperation is increasingly pushing young women into a sex trade that hides behind the facade of karaoke bars and massage parlours.
At the bars, known locally as KTVs for "karaoke television," young women in their late teens and early 20s entertain clients in private air-conditioned rooms furnished with sofas and karaoke equipment.
Waiters enter only when customers order food and drinks, or if the women ring a bell to alert the management that a client is getting out of hand.
You could be here
Workers at KTVs say sex is not necessarily on offer, but they add that in the private rooms boundaries can be vague.
"It's hard to control men in this kind of room," 22-year-old Kay Kay says.
"They are so wild when they get drunk. I need to hold both his hands to protect myself. Sometimes I need to ring the bell to call for help from the waiters," she says.
Customers vary from teenagers to adults. Sometimes they come with friends, occasionally even with family, to venues that blur the line between casual entertainment and brothels.
Cherry and Kay Kay are among 20 girls working in their KTV bar, located near Rangoon's landmark Shwedagon Pagoda, one of the Buddhist country's holiest shrines. Ostensibly they are hostesses, paid to keep customers company, encourage them to buy drinks, and to sing for them.
Prostitution is illegal in Burma, but it began to take root underground after the ruling junta abandoned socialism for a market economy in 1996.
Myanmar is one of the world's poorest countries, where even urban professionals scrape out a living on less than a dollar a day. Salaries for civil servants, for example, start at about 20,000 kyats (about $17.50) a month.
Many industries have been decimated by decades of economic mismanagement by the military, coupled with the effects of Western sanctions imposed over the regime's failure to make good on promises of democratic reforms.
Cherry says she decided to work in the karaoke bar after quitting her low-wage job at a garment factory.
The eldest daughter in her family, Cherry was taken out of school before she reached her teens so her family could afford to send her brothers to school.
She then started working in the factory, but quit after discovering that she could earn more in tips in one night at the karaoke bar than she earned in a month at her old job.
Cherry and Kay Kay say they both grew up in broken families, and have not told any of their relatives about their new jobs.
"I didn't tell my mom that I'm working at KTV. She thinks that I'm working as a sales girl in a supermarket," Cherry says.
Many of the girls working in Rangoon's KTV bars have come from Burma's impoverished countryside in search of better opportunities in the city.
The bar that employs Cherry and Kay Kay provides them with free room and board, and a base salary of 20,000 kyats, or about $17.50.
"The basic salary is similar to what I earned at the factory, but here we get tips from customers," Cherry says. "Sometimes we earn 30,000 kyats ($27.00) in one night just from the tips."
The women are not allowed to leave the bar before its 2 am closing time, and then they are driven back to the hostel.
In a nation that prides itself on the glories of its past and its literary culture, the growth of the entertainment industry has caused some public soul-searching.
One poet, who wrote about the trend in a poem called "Rangoon Nights," said poverty was not the only culprit driving young women to their after-hours jobs.
"As many of them are uneducated and don't value their life, so they eventually end up in this community," he said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
But Wine, who worked as a cashier in a music restaurant, said that even some professional women are turning to the nightlife for second jobs to help make ends meet.
"The girls working in our shop include schoolgirls, nurses who are available to work at night and university graduates," Wine said, adding that she started working at the restaurant after twice failing her high school graduation exam and being unable to find any other job.
"Many friends of mine work in KTVs or music pubs while also taking university correspondence courses," she said.
The stigma attached to the bar girls remains strong, and many parents would rather see their children join the millions of Myanmar migrants heading overseas to search for work.
"My youngest daughter wanted to work in a KTV bar. I did not allow her, because once she takes the step of working there, it becomes very easy for her to become a commercial sex worker. It's very hard to control," said Ei, a 59-year-old mother of two daughters.
Ei says that like many families here, hers is struggling to survive. But she would rather see her daughters try to find work overseas than let them work in a karaoke bar.
Cherry and Kay Kay say they are happy they make enough money to support their families without having to leave the country.
"I can support my family well. One of my brothers will graduate from university very soon," says Cherry.
"I don't need to work very hard like I did in the factory but you know customers treat us just as bar girls, they look down on us. The reputation of a bar girl is not so good in this community."
Copenhagen - Many Danish nursing homes do not shy away from helping residents contact prostitutes, the Politiken newspaper reported Friday. The newspaper quoted a recent survey conducted by the Danish Nurses Organization that suggested the practice was not uncommon.
"In general our approach is to help the elderly with that kind of need," said a nurse at a nursing home in Charlottenlund, near Copenhagen, according to the report.
Decisions about whether or not staff were allowed to assist elderly residents get in touch with sex-workers rested with local municipal authorities, the report said.
An exception was Copenhagen where such assistance is not allowed since 2006 when the city council adopted a programme to combat prostitution.
Sexologist Judith Rosenkrantz, who has earlier been head of a nursing home and now advises health workers, said that the needs of elderly residents have to be taken into account.
The most common category were men, often suffering from dementia.
"If the elderly person is not able to channel his sexuality, he can become aggressive and start attacking staff," Rosenkrantz said.
Rosenkrantz said that the main need was often physical contact, a cuddle or help to masturbate rather than actual sexual intercourse.
Yelena laughs. "What else can I do now but laugh," she asks. She has a nice smile and a hearty laugh, a youthful body and a pink, smooth face that belie her 41 years. They also belie the accident. The fire did not touch her face.
The horror is concealed beneath her clothes. The fire slowly licked every inch of her body. Limb after limb, without letup. But seven years later Yelena tells her story calmly, without tears, without trembling. At the most difficult moments she laughs. "That's how I survive," she says. Only during a late-night conversation does she add: "When you leave, I'll be left with my thoughts. I won't be able to fall asleep."
Yelena (not her real name) and her attorney, Ahuva Zalcberg, are behind one of the most unusual lawsuits ever submitted to the Be'er Sheva District Court. The incident that prompted it occurred seven years ago. In 2000, Yelena was working as a prostitute in a discreet apartment in Be'er Sheva. One night in December of that year, at 3 A.M., as part of a battle with the owner over control of the business, unknown men broke in, beat and stabbed the guard to death and set the apartment on fire. They locked in Yelena and her Russian-national coworker, Tania, who is also a plaintiff in the case.
Yelena and Tania's survival was close to a miracle. Their bodies in flames, they broke through the window bars on the second-floor apartment and jumped. Both were hospitalized in serious condition in the intensive care unit of the city's Soroka Medical Center.
Yelena was on a respirator for three weeks and underwent several skin grafts. One of her feet became gangrenous and had to be amputated. She had third-degree burns over 60 percent of her body. After a long period at Soroka she was moved to Beilinson Hospital at Rabin Medical Center in Petah Tikva. In March 2001 she was admitted to Loewenstein Hospital Rehabilitation Center, Ra'anana, where she remained for six months.
Tania had third-degree burns on her arms and legs. After several operations her condition deteriorated and she returned to intensive care. Eventually, scorched and scarred, both women came through.
Today, in an unusual step, they are demanding monetary compensation from everyone responsible for operating the apartment where they provided sex services. They are suing the Be'er Sheva municipality, which according to the lawsuit was guilty of negligence and of violating its legal duty by not doing enough to close the business within its jurisdiction, about which it was cognizant. They are suing the Israel Police on the grounds that it knew about the business and about the violent incidents occurring there and did not do enough to close it or at least ensure the safety of its workers. They are suing the operator of the massage parlor, Meir Danino, who according to the suit neglected to ensure the safety of the employees and to observe fire safety regulations, including the provision of emergency entrances and exits.
Yelena and Tania are claiming compensation for lost future income. They say that had it not been for the accident they would have continued working in prostitution and earned tidy sums. In addition, Yelena seeks compensation for her exceptional expenses in the wake of her serious injuries. "It is unconscionable that there be a business, much less an illegal one, which everyone allows to exist without ensuring basic safety conditions for the clients and the workers," says Zalcberg. "Either close the business, or demand the same safety conditions as in every business. You can't have it both ways."
Better to die
In Yelena's house the lights are dimmed and the atmosphere is peaceful. Her young son is sleeping, her older daughter is off in her room with the phone. They live in a cozy, orderly apartment in a good area in the center of the country. Yelena, serious and carefully groomed, earns a living from casual babysitting jobs. She is afraid the rent will increase next year and they will have to leave. That is her greatest fear, to be left without a home for her children. It was this fear that drove her into the sex industry 10 years ago, when she was a new divorcee with a young daughter. Most of the people in her life today do not know about her shady past. When people ask about her scars she says she was injured in a terror attack.
Be'er Sheva was not the first city where she worked as a prostitute. "I went to work in Be'er Sheva because a prostitute has to go all over [the country] to survive," Yelena says. "If you stay in the same place the men get tired of you. That's how I came to Be'er Sheva, too. You know, every place has its own character and its own men. I worked in Jerusalem, Haifa, the center of the country, everywhere the work is different. It's easiest to work in Be'er Sheva, in the periphery," she smiles, whispering, "The men aren't sophisticated, it doesn't take much to satisfy them. The Israeli men in the center of the country can drive you crazy with their fantasies. In Be'er Sheva it's enough for them to see me naked and they come. A minute or two, all I do is touch their hand and good-bye."
She was unaware of the struggles for control among the city's pimps. All she wanted was to work and to leave with her money. "In prostitution it's not the police that are scary, it's the conflicts among the pimps. And I was the victim of such a disagreement." What exactly was it over? She doesn't know and doesn't want to know. "What else could they argue about? Money."
A few days before the fire several unknown men came and roughed up Yelena and the security guard at the massage parlor. She realized that serious trouble was brewing. "Scary men came in. One came over, pulled my lips up and down and looked at my teeth. Like buying a horse. I don't know what kind of nerves a person needs to allow someone to do that to him and not to move, to remain silent. Not to say a thing. At that moment I erased myself. I knew that man could kill. When they left I asked Yasha, the guard: 'Who is that? What is that?' He explained that they were the muscle for one of the big massage parlor operators in the city. We prostitutes don't get involved in the politics among the pimps. I worked, paid the cashier what I needed to and went home. But when that happened I knew I had to get out."
She did not get out. On December 21, 2000 Yelena reported for her shift as usual. "That night, from 2 A.M. to 3 A.M. I was in one room and Tania in the other, and Yasha was at the entrance. Yasha was a good guy. A father of three, he had a regular job in the morning and at night he was a guard at the massage parlor. He was always worried about his livelihood. I barely knew Tania. There was no connection, each did her own work. It was a slow night and we wanted to close up already. And then the owner called and told me to stay for another hour because he was sending a friend of his. I said alright. The client arrived. I was already naked. While I was with the client we suddenly heard a loud noise. Our door was kicked open. Men wearing black masks, with clubs in their hands, came in. At first I felt my blood flood with adrenalin, that I had no air. They laid the client on the bed and began hitting him on the legs with the clubs. And I was there. Standing in front of them and watching, naked. I thought: 'What should I do, what should I do?' And then one said to the other: 'Why are you standing there, bring the bottle.'
"I realized they wanted to burn the place down," Yelena continued. "He told me 'Go there,' to the other room. And when I started going he poured kerosene on the floor and on me, too. At that moment I thought that it was better to die on the spot than to be so scared. I went into the bathroom, I wanted to open the window and jump out. Tania, who had also come in, said: 'Don't do it now. They'll kill us.' The window was hard to open, they would have heard and killed us. Meanwhile we saw them pouring kerosene all over the apartment. I turned on the water in the bathtub, maybe it would help. And then they left and threw matches inside. Boom. The flames rose all at once."
The arsonists left and locked the apartment, dooming those inside to death. "You know, from the shock of the fear you don't feel a thing. I didn't feel the fire burning me. I didn't feel pain. The entire apartment was in flames. I saw Yasha there, lying on the floor, and told him: 'Get up, Yasha, get up or you'll burn.' At that point I didn't know that he was badly hurt. As soon as they came in they had stabbed him in the stomach. When Tania managed to open the window I couldn't see anymore. I closed my eyes and suddenly opened them. I think I woke up because I felt I had no air. And then I jumped from the second floor. The thought in my mind was that I had a child waiting for me.
"I started rolling in the sand, I tried to cool my skin a little. I saw Tania sitting in front of me not understanding what was happening. Her dress was torn, everything was black. I was completely naked. Tania said to me: 'Let's go.' We were in a backyard but we were afraid that the arsonists were still there. In the end we went out into the street. A taxi driver stopped, I never learned his name. But I thank him. He brought us to the hospital." When she saw the doctors she managed to utter one sentence: "Put me to sleep. I can't stand it anymore."
Is that hell?
"I think that there, in hell, it's easier. I was clinically dead, I closed my eyes, I know what it's like when you get there. There's nothing there that's like what I went through in that apartment. Now I'm not afraid of death."
Security
Yelena immigrated to Israel in 1991 from St. Petersburg, Russia with her husband and their daughter. They divorced soon afterward and Yelena found herself alone in a foreign country, without a support network, without language skills and without any source of income. In Russia she had studied track and field, there was no work in Israel in that. "I didn't see any work I could do apart from prostitution," she says.
In 1997 she began working at a massage parlor in the center of the country. Yelena does not condemn prostitution: just the opposite. Were it not for the arson and her injuries she probably would have continued to spend her nights in a moldy apartment with strange men. She sees nothing wrong with it. Yelena says that the professional life of a prostitute lasts for about 15 years, and she barely managed to work for three. It was thanks to prostitution that she managed to settle down and be a good mother, she says. Her daily schedule was like that of a perfect mother. In the morning she would bring her daughter to kindergarten or school, then sleep until noon, cook lunch, pick up her daughter and spend the rest of the day with her. It was only after her daughter fell asleep that Yelena would go out for another night in the massage parlor.
"When I'm in the massage parlor I'm not myself," she says. "I'm someone else entirely. It's theater. 'The prostitute' is a disguise I wear. I don't know if you can understand, but the garbage in that place is the men. They beg for my services. I'm the strong one. You know, in those places you could explode from laughter."
What's funny?
"We would laugh at the men, at ourselves, at everything. We laughed at one another because we're all in the gutter there, as low as possible, and only in such a situation can you say everything and laugh about everything, because otherwise what's left?"
From the sidelines it's hard to understand your acceptance of prostitution. Didn't you want to get out of it?
"I didn't see anyplace to go to. How could I get out? My Hebrew wasn't good, worse than now. When I came to Israel they sent me to work in a packing house. I didn't want to. In prostitution I made money. I traveled abroad a lot with my daughter, I had a housekeeper. I lived very well. My status as a prostitute was entirely different. I wasn't a tourist, like the ones they smuggle here via Egypt, take away their papers, smuggle them from place to place and don't give them money. In my case it was a choice, I saw prostitution as work. I didn't go there to pass the time. I would see the tourist prostitutes at the massage parlors depressed, sitting, drinking, talking and not wanting to work. I came to work, not to talk. I needed the money, after a few hours I would return home to my daughter."
Didn't it tear you apart, to go from the everyday world to an underworld of massage parlors? Didn't you want to work in a decent profession?
"I knew what I was doing. I understood that it was hard-earned money, but every day you make a sum of money and for me that was security. I was here by myself, I had to pay rent. My greatest fear was to find myself on the street with my daughter."
Does your daughter know?
"She knows. There was a time when she kept telling me that a friend from school had told her that her mother was such and such, and I always told her it wasn't true. You know how it is when someone pressures you. In the end I told her: 'Yes, it's true.' I told her one thing, that I don't want her to be in this profession. I told her what had happened. I explained to her why sometimes I'm in a bad mood, why sometimes I cry and why sometimes I don't feel like getting out of bed."
Do you talk about your past, does she ask why?
"We've never sat and talked. I never asked whether or not she's been traumatized or not. She's learned to live with it. I explained to her that I started working in prostitution because I had no choice. I explained to her that I had tried everything. The city welfare department doesn't pay rent. We needed the money."
Raw flesh
The moment Yelena opened her eyes in the hospital she began to cry. "The doctors came and told me what the situation was. I was covered with burns. I was like a mummy, all wrapped in white: my legs, my arms, my back. In my legs I felt something hard, heavy. The doctors explained that they had to amputate my foot. I couldn't speak, I was attached to a respirator. I simply cried."
During those first days of hospitalization Yelena was told that Yasha had died of his injuries. She was happy to find out that Tania had survived and was with her in the hospital. The two, who until that night had barely known one another, became close friends, supporting each other through the prolonged hospitalization. Yelena's mother came from Russia to care for her granddaughter, who remained at home.
"It's a very slow rehabilitation. The worst part is the baths. The pain that can drive you crazy. Every 24 hours they have to change the bandages covering your body. They put you into a room with a special bed, with two nurses on each side. I still remember the cold in that room. And then, together, they begin pulling off the bandages and they very quickly wash your skin with soap. Under the bandages there is actually no skin, it's raw flesh. And then they put on clean bandages. There is no word to describe that pain. After such a treatment you remain empty, airless. Sometimes even the nurses couldn't do it because they couldn't stand to see my suffering. Today nothing hurts me, not after those treatments."
Yelena remained at Soroka for over three months, receiving numerous skin grafts. From there she was transferred to Beilinson and then to Loewenstein for rehabilitation.
"I was a temperamental patient. I screamed. It hurt, it drove me crazy, I was impatient. I was angry at myself, why had this happened to me. I didn't do anything bad to anyone, why did I deserve it. But in the morning, when I opened my eyes, I had to laugh with Tania. We laughed over nonsense. The nurses were amazed at how we laughed. We would ask the doctors when we would be sexy again, and they would laugh. With all the pain there was joy as well. We were glad we were still alive."
Were there moments when you were in despair?
"In Soroka there was a period when I didn't want to recover. And then my daughter came to the hospital. She cried, I cried, and at that moment I decided that I would recover. I agreed to begin going to physiotherapy, which is very difficult because the skin shrinks and you can't stretch your arms and legs. I'm here today thanks to her. She gave me the motivation. She needed me."
After about a year Yelena returned home. "When I left the hospital I didn't even take my medical records. I didn't want to know how hard it had been. It's hard to return to life afterward. You keep thinking about it. I had bad moods. I didn't always want to get up in the morning. Even today, every morning I get up and look at the stump and it puts me in a bad mood."
How did your daughter react to all the events?
"I missed a year with her, and that's hard. She was just beginning adolescence when it happened. When I returned from the hospital I found another child, grown up, she already had a ring in her navel. She went through something and I lost the mother- daughter relationship. She began to menstruate and I wasn't even there."
Like any mother
Yelena met Zalcberg, who specializes in damage suits and does a lot of work on behalf of foreign workers, while she was at Beilinson. The hospital social workers called the lawyer and asked if she would meet with a solitary woman who needed help. "I came Friday evening," Zalcberg says. "I can't forget that day. She was lying in the room alone, for fear of infections. I saw a figure entirely covered with white bandages, with her extremities raised. Like in the movies. I could barely understand her when she spoke. But this figure, from inside the wrappings, radiated great strength and power."
Zalcberg also met Tania, who was staying at a police shelter for foreign nationals who are victims of trafficking and women and are to testify against their employers. "Tania's case was more difficult because she had no health insurance. After Soroka she had nowhere to go. Her medical condition was serious. The only organization that aided her was Physicians for Human Rights. She needed daily medical care, she had lots of burns and bandages."
Zalcberg took the unprecedented step of demanding that the National Insurance Institute (NII) recognize Yelena and Tania as the victims of a work accident, guaranteeing paid medical care and a lifetime disability allowance. "The NII is the most conservative organization in the world, and nevertheless we succeeded," Zalcberg says. Using documents obtained from the police Zalcberg was able to prove that the accident happened on the job and because of the job. "This is the first time the NII is recognizing an incident like this as a work accident, and it saved their lives."
The Be'er Sheva police arrested three men in connection to the incident, brothers Moti, Asher and Michel Abecassis, who are known to the police as being involved in the battle for control of the city's sex industry. They were held for a period of time but were never indicted. "There was no evidence," their attorney, Esther Bar-Zion, says. Tania was asked to testify but she was unable to recall the appearance of the attackers.
Zalcberg has been a witness to Yelena's difficulties. She was repeatedly evicted for failing to pay her rent when she was unable to find work. "I personally tried to find her a job," Zalcberg says. "It didn't work out. There's a language problem. She can't work as an office clerk, in sales or at any physical work, because of her disability. With all my connections I was unable to help. At one point I spoke to [Bar-Zion, whose client] was suspected in the arson, and asked whether there was any way to compensate these women, who are completely free of blame, without her clients confessing. The answer was that there's no possibility."
Zalcberg suggested to Yelena and to Tania, who returned to Russia after her recovery, that they sue the authorities and Danino, the owner of the massage parlor, for damages. The women were fearful and hesitant at first but eventually they came to realize that their lives had been destroyed and that someone had to pay. "Now I'm not longer afraid," Yelena says. "When I worked for Danino in the parlor, he always got his half, now I deserve to get something. After the incident I tried to contact him, he immediately hung up. He didn't take an interest in my fate, nor do I want to see him. I know he has a luxury car, a wife, a business, children. His children can study at the university. What about my children? I don't want money for new clothes, I want to guarantee my children's future. I want them to go and study. I keep telling my daughter: 'Knowledge is power.' I don't want my daughter to be like me."
About a year after returning home Yelena decided to have another baby (and did so with a friend). "After what had happened, I felt that I had to have something that would make me get up in the morning," she explains. "Something that would wake me up, literally and figuratively. I'm extremely lonely here. A few friends, but mainly alone. I became pregnant. The moment the child was born, my joie de vivre returned."
But a child is also a big financial responsibility.
"What's better, to die of loneliness? I'm a good mother."
They live very modestly, but the house is pleasant, the kitchen is well stocked and Yelena is always there, with her children. The pain does not disappear, there are mornings when she can't get out of bed, but with endless pride she tells about her daughter's grades and her son's after-school activities. "The only joy in my life is the children. I'm like any mother, I take my son to the park, to activities, to friends, I don't deny them anything."
What is your dream?
"An apartment of my own."
And on a more personal level?
"To dance in high heels."
A prostitute from El Salvador who identifies herself as Melisa, 30, poses for a portrait while waiting for clients in her rented room on a street called in Spanish "La Linea," or "The Strip," where dozens of women work as prostitutes in Guatemala City, Tuesday, April 17, 2007.
Prostitutes from Costa Rica who identify themselves as Julie, 23, left, Tamara, 24, center, and Angie, 22, talk with potential clients, not seen, from their rented room on a street called in Spanish "La Linea," or "The Strip," where dozens of women work as prostitutes in Guatemala City, Friday, May 25, 2007.
A prostitute who identifies herself as Melisa, 30, laughs as she poses for a portrait while waiting for clients in her rented room on a street called in Spanish "La Linea," or "The Strip," where dozens of women work as prostitutes in Guatemala City, Tuesday, April 17, 2007.
A prostitute from El Salvador who goes by the name Kathy covers her face while talking to a potential client in her rented room on a street called in Spanish "La Linea," or "The Strip," where dozens of women work as prostitutes in Guatemala City, Tuesday, April 10, 2007.
A prostitute from Costa Rica who identifies herself as Angie, 22, smokes a cigarette while clients wait in the doorway of her rented room on a street called in Spanish "La Linea," or "The Strip" where dozens of women work as prostitutes in Guatemala City, Friday, May 25, 2007.
A prostitute from El Salvador who identifies herself as Vilma poses for a portrait as she waits for clients in her rented room on a street called in Spanish "La Linea," or "The Strip," where dozens of women work as prostitutes in Guatemala City, Monday, April 23, 2007.
A sixty-five year old prostitute who identifies herself as "La Abuelita," or "The Grandmother," poses for a portrait in a rented room where she has been living for the last 42 years on a street called in Spanish "La Linea," or "The Strip," where dozens of women work as prostitutes in Guatemala City, Friday, Jan. 19, 2007. La Abuelita is said to be the oldest sex worker on The Strip, and due to severe back pain is now considering retirement and expects to survive on selling goods.
Prostitutes buy fresh goat milk while waiting for clients outside their rented rooms on a street called in Spanish "La Linea," or "The Strip," where dozens of women work as prostitutes in Guatemala City, Monday, May 28, 2007.
A prostitute from El Salvador who identifies herself as "La Flaca," or "Skinny," checks her makeup as she waits for clients in her rented room on a street called in Spanish "La Linea," or "The Strip," where dozens of women work as prostitutes in Guatemala City, Thursday, April 19, 2007.
A prostitute who goes by the name in Spanish "Gata Salvaje" or "Wild Cat," waits for clients outside her rented room on a street called in Spanish "La Linea," or "The Strip," where dozens of women work as prostitutes in Guatemala City, Wednesday, April 11, 2007.
A prostitute from Nicaragua who identifies herself as Brenda talks to a man as she stands in the doorway of her rented room on a street called in Spanish "La Linea," or "The Strip," where dozens of women work as prostitutes in Guatemala City, Thursday, April 12, 2007.
