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At the age of 14, Colombian Beatriz Helena Rodríguez Renfigo was taken to a brothel by her mother.
Yes, for his mother. And there he stayed. She has been a prostitute for more than 20 years, moving from one bad estate to another.
"I only did what I had learned to do when I was small, the only thing I knew how to do," he says at his 50's, the eyes misted with tears while he was remembering the horror he had experienced.
It took him a lifetime to get out of this world he calls "true torture".
But he did it. With 20 other brothelmates, she learned how to make sausages and set up a meat-making business that allowed them to earn enough money to stop prostituting themselves.
Today, Beatriz is one of the leading Colombian activists against prostitution. She is the director of Asomupcar, the badociation of meat producers in the department of Caquetá, in southern Colombia. It's an organization that helps badually exploited women to leave this world.
Beatriz participated in an international congress on prostitution in Madrid organized by the Coalition against Trafficking in Women and the Commission of Inquiry into the Abuse of Women. And in this scenario, he shared his story with BBC Mundo in this interview.
You were 14 years old when your mother put you in a brothel.
Yes it was.
If I'm not mistaken, it's because you lost your virginity with a boyfriend.
As such. They raised my mother like that, thinking that a virgin young woman, married, dressed in white and wearing a long shawl that did not come out of her house was worthless.
My mother felt that I could not give society to a woman, a girl, who was not married and that I could not get married because I was already "jumping" (" To make jokes").
So, like Pilate, he washed his hands and handed me my aunt, my dad's sister, who owned a brothel. He said: "Look, this girl is here, I have nothing to do with her, I already told her, I had already warned her, I had warned her, but that do not help her, so I leave her there. "
My aunt replied, "Leave it quiet" for the house where I know what to do with the girl. " And they left me there, in this situation.
How long have you been a prostitute?
I was 22 years old, my whole life. I had three children, imagine. And I raised them all in prostitution. At 16, I had my little girl, at 20, I had the little boy and at 24, I had the last one. Of course, I do not know who his parents are.
What is the worst about being a prostitute?
Absolutely everything. Being a prostitute is a torture, supposedly spoiled because there is money. But it is a permanent torture, 24 hours a day, seven days a week, pregnant, with the period, sick, postpartum.
It's a torture, day and night, day after day. It's a torture to dress, repair, take a bath, smile, put on the miniskirt and heels. Torture granted for money.
Precisely because there is money in between, prostitutes are generally not considered victims.
Yes, a rape, for example, has the lead, and yes, it was a very painful episode of her life to have been raped. But a prostitute goes through ten, fifteen or twenty times a day.
That has touched me. When I was in prostitution in Caquetá, they were twenty times a day. I found myself with my bad so swollen, throwing me the night Vaseline or a refreshing cream to sleep.
And if you can not sleep, it does not matter, because you have to get up early. All day, all day. I do not know what is the worst: if it is the abuse of your body, the penetration of your soul, the surrender of your being. I do not know.
And how did you survive all those years of torture?
Do not think about it, do not badyze it. The only thing you ask is: I have to do it, point to line.
You came out of prostitution. If I am not mistaken, thanks in part to the former mayor of Florida, Lucrecia Murcia, capital of Caquetá.
Yes, as a candidate for mayor, she went to work, went to the brothel, stayed up late to try to convince us, to get us out of there. He gave us this first opportunity, he believed in us. And we, that fear and pain that we felt, managed to overcome it and we managed to get out.
We have qualified and it is thanks to the qualification and knowledge of our rights that we have managed to become the social platform that we are today in Colombia.
You and your housemates have learned how to make sausages and start a meat products business, is not it?
Yes, we now have several companies in the 16 municipalities of Caquetá department in which we empower and give work to the women we permanently save from prostitution.
And we have also become operators of some public services, we administer important resources of childhood and adolescence and old people. Unfortunately, the issue of women is not very developed in my country, it is very difficult to leave a budget for that.
What would you say to those who claim that prostitution is work that is chosen voluntarily and that should be regulated as another profession?
No no no no no. This is not a job, and you must continue to say it and shout it. It is necessary to get out of our vocabulary and especially from our heads that prostitution is a job.
And no, you can not regulate. How will it regulate, I ask, how often do they penetrate me in the bad, how much in the bad, how many pipes should I do, how many punishments should I suffer?
No, it's not a job and it can not be regulated. bad is a crime against humanity, against women who suffer it.
Have you ever feared for your life?
Of course, all the time. I live, I live, in a region where all armed actors converge. We have an overpopulation of armed men in power, we have drug traffickers, gangs, paramilitaries, guerrillas, the army.
We have more than 28,000 armed men in our area. So, all the time, we fear for our life.
On several occasions, during these 20 years of accompanying women who want to get out of prostitution, we had to negotiate with the different armed groups in my area.
Did you also fear for your life when you were in prostitution?
How not Always Danger is always imminent in the lives of prostitutes. And even more in a violent, armed context, with drug trafficking like the one I live: the lives of whores are worthless. Everything is paid with life.
And the woman's body becomes the war booty of the warriors. The woman is hurt, the mistress, the girl, the lover of the other with whom we are arguing.
It's about killing her, torturing her so that the other feels that I have more power.
Why do many men find it acceptable to pay in exchange for bad?
Because it's the value they give to women. They see us as things that can be used, abused and bought.
There are countries that punish men who buy bad with fines. What do you think?
I think it helps. All the strategies that can be used against this crime, which is a monster with all the faces, with all the money in the world, are going well.
How could we end prostitution?
I do not know if I am very naive, but I think that a beginning would be the development of new masculinities, new relationships between men and women and the implementation of prevention programs that insert the theme into the primary curriculum of our children. the rights of women and men as responsible social actors.
We must begin to change the mentality that impresses in our children that our women must be at the service of men.
Some former prostitutes talk about brothels as concentration camps.
I had never compared it, but when I heard that, I started thinking and, yes, I have spent my whole life in life and today. there are many women in concentration camps.
Do you feel stigmatized for being a prostitute?
Yes Madam. In my area, stigma is still felt, more so for women than for men.
The men do not care, they care about a donkey: I met her, I used her, I paid her and she was finished. For women, women do not forgive that we were a prostitute.
SI see everything in institutions, women who have power: "Oh, this bitch comes", "this old woman is already there, what laziness", "now we give everything and she continues to kiss" …
How is the relationship with your children? Do they support it?
Yes, they know, they support me and all work in my badociation. I have a girl who is a psychologist, the other is a pedagogue and the boy also works with us.
Did you manage to forgive your mother for putting her 14 years in a brothel?
I think I never blamed him. She believed that she was doing her best for me, that she was teaching me a craft. She was raised in a patriarchal culture and felt that what she had done was what she had to do.
I never blamed him. In fact, today, she lives with me and I support her economically in her old age. No, I never blamed him.
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