Retirement home prepared for Mexican prostitutes

[Sarge]

Retirement home prepared for Mexican prostitutes

Wed Mar 16, 8:23 PM ET


MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Distressed to find aging homeless women still working as prostitutes in downtown Mexico City, womens' groups are preparing a roomy retirement home to take 65 of them off the streets.


Reuters Photo



Rejected by their families and stripped of much of their earnings by policemen and pimps, the elderly sex workers say they have no choice but to keep working, sometimes for less than $2 (1 pound) a day or just a plate of food.


"I may have two or three clients a day but I can't charge what the young ones do. Sometimes I just ask for food or a hotel room," said Gloria Maria, a kindly faced woman of 74 who mostly sleeps outdoors in a grimy downtown food market.


Funds raised this week will go toward fixing the roof of a an elegant but crumbling 18th century building donated by the Mexico City government to serve as a retirement home for Gloria Maria and others.


Like many of her co-workers, Gloria Maria was raped as a teenager and fell into prostitution soon afterward.


Prostitution is not legal in Mexico but sex workers are tolerated, along with the shoe shiners, orange juice vendors and tamale sellers who clog the streets of big cities, creating a grey economy that absorbs millions of unemployed.


While some of these workers can put savings under the mattress for old age, or hope their children will support them, prostitutes often have nothing after a life of exploitation by pimps and paying bribes to avoid arrest.


Few are in touch with their families or children.


"Other people pay taxes and can retire with a pension. We are exploited by society then thrown away when we get old," said one lithe young prostitute, with long blond hair and funky platform shoes.


"We should have the same rights as anyone else," she said at a fund-raising concert for the retirement home on Tuesday.


Organisers are collecting funds from private donors and hoping local companies will provide beds and help with improvements to the retirement home like painting, plumbing and rewiring.


The women will be expected to cook and clean for themselves and earn money through handicrafts to help with running costs.


The home is seen as a pilot project and the organisers realise it needs to be part of a longer-term solution for sex workers.


"Sex workers are doubly marginalised," said Emilienne de Leon, head of a local womens' rights group called Semillas.


"They are rejected by society and by their families. When they get old, either they sell themselves very cheaply or they don't have enough to eat. It's a very difficult world."


http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmp...co_prostitutes

[Sarge]

"I may have two or three clients a day but I can't charge what the young ones do. Sometimes I just ask for food or a hotel room," said Gloria Maria, a kindly faced woman of 74 who mostly sleeps outdoors in a grimy downtown food market.
--------------------------

I would think a 74 year old would have to pay me for SEX..not the other way around..

[Carmine]

Unionize em!!

Local 69 of The Lady's of The evening International!!

[WACF]

Originally posted by Sarge

I would think a 74 year old would have to pay me for SEX..not the other way around..

I was thinking the same thing.

[vanzilla]

Not to get off point here, but why is it that females that are raped as teenagers go into prostitution? I'm not trying to be funny - but genuinely curious.

Good story Sarge.

[Katydid]

Originally posted by vanzilla
Not to get off point here, but why is it that females that are raped as teenagers go into prostitution? I'm not trying to be funny - but genuinely curious.

Good story Sarge.

I have worked in a regular hospital setting with adolescents, and grown ups who are in lock up for depression, and mental illness.

Some have attention deficent syndrome, (ADS) that is they never learned to read and write, and were hyper. It came out in anger which is suppressed depression.

Some had cut themselve because their life was so terrible they hated themselves, and out of anger cut their wrists, etc.

Some starved themselves. In a group sitting when asked to describe your feelings....one wrote, " I feel like a balloon trying to fly and all that is below is prickly cactus." (They cannot control their life, someone else does and they hate it... so food is one thing they have control over and they eat and binge, and starve.) Just like Bulimia...they mostly eat for comfort and retreat from the world. Most of these children were overfed as children, so they acquaint food with love.

The promiscuious teens suffer from insecurity. If they are raped or sexually molested , or abused they may do the same becoming pedophiles or abusers themselves. OR go the opposite and get into drugs and prostitution to get away from a home enviorment. They generally have a low self esteem and feel unworthy. They seem to turn to the type atmosphere they are running away from, being used and abused by someone. However, the prostitute uses it in a form of "using the men or women" who are their johns. A lot of lesbians and homosexuals were misused as children by someone.

They usually have no job skills and were school drop outs, and runaways.

Once people get on the streets they can never seem to get their lives together. They might go to AA, NA, and live in a shelter, but violence and addictions seem to stalk them. They can usually never go home...if they do they backslide very easily into the same mode they began in their early lives.

People on the streets are mostly mentally ill, and were never treated for it correctly. They get on drugs, alcohol, and prostitution and finally give up. A lot of them are rebels...they never learned dicipline or respect for themselves or others.

[Classic]

Hmm, I wonder what kind of people the customers of these GMILFS are...

[vanzilla]

Thank you Katy for that response. I agree with most of your post, with the exception that a lot of homosexuals were "misused" by someone when they were children.

But other than that - a very intelligent answer than didn't go off on a religous tangent. I'm impressed.

[Mezro]

Originally posted by Sarge
Retirement home for Mexican prostitutes

This already has a name.

Mezro...LA...

[Golden AWe]

Originally posted by Katydid
I have worked in a regular hospital setting with adolescents, and grown ups who are in lock up for depression, and mental illness.

Some have attention deficent syndrome, (ADS) that is they never learned to read and write, and were hyper. It came out in anger which is suppressed depression.

Some had cut themselve because their life was so terrible they hated themselves, and out of anger cut their wrists, etc.

Some starved themselves. In a group sitting when asked to describe your feelings....one wrote, " I feel like a balloon trying to fly and all that is below is

Goin’ home, late last night
Suddenly I got a fright
Yeah I looked through the window and surprised what I saw
Fairy boots were dancing’ with a dwarf,

All right now!

Fairies wear boots and you gotta believe me
Yeah I saw it, I saw it, I tell you no lies
Yeah fairies wear boots and you gotta believe me
I saw it, I saw it with my own two eyes,

Well all right now!

So I went to the doctor
See what he could give me
He said son, son, you’ve gone too far.
’cause smokin’ and trippin’ is all that you do.