Chicas Bar Brothel and Street Prostitutes, San Pedro Sula, Honduras 1994
Chicas Bar (girls bar) is a brothel located on the main street in the barrio (district) of Cabanas, San Pedro Sula, Honduras. The brothel is owned by Oscar, but is effectively run by Erica Escobar, who is the current ‘boss girl’. She keeps the other nine girls in order and is responsible for booking clients, collecting money, recruiting and training new girls.
Erica has risen through the ranks at the brothel progressing from victim to enabler within a system where vulnerable girls are alternatively rewarded, abused, controlled and manipulated by their brothel owners and subordinates.
She is 23 years old and is HIV-positive. She says she was tricked, then abducted at the age of 13 years old and quickly became indoctrinated and ‘normalised’ into a system of prostitution, debt and misplaced loyalty towards her brothel owner. When Erica was originally abducted, her family was told she had willingly become a sex worker, this resulted in her being rejected by her family, meaning there was no return for her. She was further entrapped into the system by borrowing money from the brothel owner to buy clothes, makeup, drugs and alcohol which quickly became a debt impossible to repay.
After a succession of ‘owners’, Oscar is her latest, he can sell her together with her debt to other brothels if he wishes, her current street value is 3000 limpiras The only way to repay her debts is to work at Chicas Bar.
Erica has had four tests for HIV in other districts in San Pedro Sula, all were positive. There is a legal requirement that prostitutes must be tested for HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases each week. However, Oscar has bribed a health care worker to provide Erica and the other girls with a HIV negative stamp on their health cards.
It was normal practise for clients to use condoms at the brothel but many choose to pay extra not to use them, despite the risks of contracting HIV. The girls also take this risk as it enables them to earn more money, they realise their situation and accept this is their life and fate.
Several months after these photographs were taken Oscar was murdered by a rival brothel owner and the brothel closed. Erica was offered a job as sex education worker but turned it down, unable to move on from this life, she now works at another brothel.
For Erica and the other working girls at Chicas Bar their future is bleak. In 1994 there were no antiretroviral medicines or therapies available to control HIV. As HIV positive working prostitutes they will continue to work until they are too sick and will possibly end their days at the San José Hospice, together with their clients. See HIV/AIDS Honduras Project Jan/Feb 1993
All images are Strictly Copyright © Bill Stephenson All Rights Reserved
[CB 01] View outside Chicas Bar looking down the main street in the barrio Cabanas.
[CB 02] The illuminated sign advertising Chicas Bar.
[CB 03] Erica has fun posing as a ‘model’ outside the bar. Self-harm scarring is visible on her inner wrists and arms. Self harming by cutting is a coping mechanism for emotional pain, intense anger and frustration.
[CB 04] Erica and other girls ‘advertise’ themselves to potential clients outside the bar.
[CB 05] Erica prepares herself for a nights work. She knows she is HIV positive and it amuses her that some of her ‘macho’ clients pay extra not to use a condom. She is outside the individual ‘stables’ where paying clients are brought. There are no doors to the stables only curtains, this means the girls can call out for help if a client becomes violent.
[CB 06] Oscar and Erica.
[CB 07] Oscar, his daughter and ten girls who work at Chicas Bar.
[CB 08] Every Monday morning the girls are tested for HIV and sexually transmitted diseases at a clinic in San Pedro Sula. The girls are being driven by Oscar, Erica sits in the front with him.
[CB 09] A girl looks out for clients, she partly hides behind a curtain at Chicas bar as she does not want to be recognised by people passing in the street.
[CB 10] The girls catch sight of a potential client.
[CB 11] The girls wait for clients behind a wrought iron ornamental grill. A young boy likes to talk to the girls and watch the activity in the bar.
[CB 12] View from inside Chicas Bar, the girls wait and watch for clients on a hot afternoon.
[CB 13] A potential client negotiates a fee with one of the girls.
[CB 14] A girl watches for clients behind a torn mosquito mesh screen.
[CB 15] A regular client waits for a girl to get ready.
[CB 16] Two girls dressed in their best clothes and make-up apprehensively wait to be collected by a pick-up truck up outside Chicas Bar. They have been booked for a farm workers ‘birthday party’ at a cattle ranch on the outskirts of San Pedro Sula.
[CB 17] Girl prepares to shower before she starts her evenings work.
[CB 18] Girl despairs at the situation she is in.
Maria and Martina, Street Prostitutes. 1994
Maria and Martina are both independent working street prostitutes that have not been tested for HIV. Health workers in San Pedro Sula are concerned that women such as these are undermining their efforts to check the spread of HIV throughout the population.
Street prostitutes such as Maria and Martina are also extremely vulnerable to violence from clients compared to ‘indoor’ prostitutes such as those from Chicas Bar, who are protected to some degree by their ‘brothel owner’.
[CB 19] Maria waits for clients on a street corner in San Pedro Sula, she is 20 yrs old and rents a small room nearby to take her clients. She has around 7-8 clients each day, most are regulars visiting her several times a week. She charges 30 lempiras each (approx. 2 US$ in 1994).
[CB 20] Maria in the doorway of the room where she brings her clients.
[CB 21] Inside the small hot room she rents, there is just a small window, bed and chair. The walls are partly covered with graffiti, spit and dried blood. She becomes upset as she talks about her life as a sex worker and mother.
[CB 22] Maria watches her son (L) playing with another child. She lives in an earth floor shack made from wood, plastic sheeting and cardboard. This illegal shanty town is on the outskirts of San Pedro Sula. It’s inhabited by several hundred other squatters and lacks adequate sanitation, safe water, electricity and drainage.
[CB 23] Martina is also a sex worker that has not been tested for HIV.
[CB 24] Martina and a homeless vagrant in one of her regular spots.
This work was supported by the United Nations Population Fund, the World Health Organisation, Channel 4 and Panos Pictures.
All images are Strictly Copyright © Bill Stephenson. All Rights Reserved.
[CB 01] View outside Chicas Bar looking down the main street in the barrio Cabanas.
[CB 02] The illuminated sign advertising Chicas Bar.
[CB 03] Erica has fun posing as a ‘model’ outside the bar. Self-harm scarring is visible on her inner wrists and arms. Self harming by cutting is a coping mechanism for emotional pain, intense anger and frustration.
[CB 04] Erica and other girls ‘advertise’ themselves to potential clients outside the bar.
[CB 05] Erica prepares herself for a nights work. She knows she is HIV positive and it amuses her that some of her ‘macho’ clients pay extra not to use a condom. She is outside the individual ‘stables’ where paying clients are brought. There are no doors to the stables only curtains, this means the girls can call out for help if a client becomes violent.
[CB 06] Oscar and Erica.
[CB 07] Oscar, his daughter and ten girls who work at Chicas Bar.
[CB 08] Every Monday morning the girls are tested for HIV and sexually transmitted diseases at a clinic in San Pedro Sula. The girls are being driven by Oscar, Erica sits in the front with him.
[CB 09] A girl looks out for clients, she partly hides behind a curtain at Chicas bar as she does not want to be recognised by people passing in the street.
[CB 10] The girls catch sight of a potential client.
[CB 11] The girls wait for clients behind metal railings. A young boy likes to talk to the girls and watch the activity in the bar.
[CB 12] View from inside Chicas Bar, the girls wait and watch for clients on a hot afternoon.
[CB 13] A potential client negotiates a fee with one of the girls.
[CB 14] A girl watches for clients behind a torn mosquito mesh screen.
[CB 15] A regular client waits for a girl to get ready.
[CB 16] Two girls dressed in their best clothes and make-up apprehensively wait to be collected in a pick-up truck up outside Chicas Bar. They have been booked for a ‘birthday party’ at a cattle ranch on the outskirts of San Pedro Sula.
[CB 17] Girl prepares to shower before she starts her evenings work.
[CB 18] Girl despairs at the situation she is in.
Maria and Martina, Street Prostitutes. 1994.
Maria and Martina are both independent working street prostitutes that have not been tested for HIV. Health workers in San Pedro Sula are concerned that women such as these are undermining their efforts to check the spread of HIV throughout the population.
Street prostitutes such as Maria and Martina are also extremely vulnerable to violence from clients compared to ‘indoor’ prostitutes such as those from Chicas Bar, who are protected to some degree by their ‘brothel owner’.
[CB 19] Maria waits for clients on a street corner in San Pedro Sula. She rents a small room nearby to take her clients.
[CB 20] Maria in the doorway of the room were she brings her clients.
[CB 21] Inside the small hot room she rents, there is just a small window, bed and chair. The walls are partly covered with graffiti, spit and dried blood. She becomes upset as she talks about her life as a sex worker and mother.
[CB 22] Maria watches her son (L) playing with another child. She lives in an earth floor shack made from wood, plastic sheeting and cardboard. This illegal shanty town is on the outskirts of San Pedro Sula. It’s inhabited by several hundred other squatters and lacks adequate sanitation, safe water, electricity and drainage.
[CB 23] Martina is also a working street prostitute that has not been tested for HIV.
[CB 24] Martina and a homeless vagrant in one of her regular spots.
This work was supported by the United Nations Population Fund, the World Health Organisation, Channel 4 and Panos Pictures.
All images are Strictly Copyright © Bill Stephenson. All Rights Reserved.