An interview with Colombian prostitution survivor & activist Beatriz Rodríguez

Beatriz Rodríguez’ life was turned upside down when her family introduced her into prostitution at the age of 14. What she calls her “kidnapping” lasted 22 years. She was born in the city of Pereira, Colombia, but eventually ended up in Florencia, another Colombian city where she found a way out and a reason to live - to help other women to escape the clutches of the traffickers who send women in their thousands to countries across the world. She is now aged 50 and the association she directs, which began as a local government-funded project that trained women to be butchers , has grown into an integrated project of empowerment and development for women in the region. Her brave work, undertaken in a conflict hot spot in Colombia, earned her a Nobel prize nomination.

How did you enter prostitution?

I was trafficked by my family. When I was 14, still a girl, my mother took me to my aunt who owned a brothel. Virginity is highly prized in my country, so when I lost mine I was no longer worth anything. My mother thought it would be impossible to get me married off, so there was nothing else to do with me. She told me that I had to be responsible and go and work with my aunt.

You were sexually exploited for over 20 years. How did it affect you psychologically and how were you able to withstand it?

I was kidnapped from my own body and my own world. Back then, I didn’t analyse it, I survived without thinking about it or feeling it. I could never give myself the space to sit down and cry for all the pain and damage I was suffering. It was simply what I was taught to do as a girl. I was subjugated, coerced and convinced that this was my lot in life. I didn’t have that space to react. When I managed to get out, I began to hurt. I had sleepless nights, I couldn’t have sexual relations with my partner, I couldn’t leave behind the guilt and fear. Now I feel the pain, but back then I doing was what my mother had taught me.

Was your mother in prostitution?

No, she was never in that situation.

What were the other women you met like during those years?

As the prostitution survivor and activist Amelia Tiganus says, the brothels are concentration camps, where every type of pain and crime that could be committed against a human being converge. They are places of abuse and extreme violence. Brothels are also places of drug and alcohol addiction. Personally, I used alcohol as a palliative to get through it. We were under constant danger of Illness, AIDs, pregnancy, beatings and kidnappings. In my case, I spent most of the time held captive, without documents, and the money that was paid for my abuse never came into my hands.

How was this network set up so that you couldn’t escape?

They took away your documents, so you couldn't go out on the street. Our society and laws put all the blame on the putas. They also take away all your economic capacity and keep you controlled constantly, under lock and key. I have three children - a daughter and a son who are both 34 and another daughter who’s now 28. When I gave birth, I handed the babies over to my mother and carried on working without any postnatal care.

Fortunately, you got out of that hell. How did you do it?

We formed a group of 20 women and gained support from the mayoress of Florencia, the city in the Amazon in Colombia where I ended up being trafficked to and where I still live. Lucrecia Murcia had promised her electorate she would create a “resocialisation” program for vulnerable groups, including the prostituted women, who they referred to as “sex workers”. She helped us get funding through the University of the Amazon for training in meat production, and we formed AOMUPCAR (Association of Women Butchers & Meatpackers of Caquetá). We started out making sausages, ribs and hamburgers, but we’ve grown into a social, political and economic platform for the women in the region.

Now AOMUPCAR is a school of psychological, medical, pedagogic and productive empowerment for women in the region. It has even opposed forced evictions. Why didn’t you change the name?

We kept the name in memory of our origins, but most of all for security reasons. In a way, the name acts as a protection in a very violent region. Here the armed conflict in the drug and arms trade involves many groups – the military, paramilitaries, the US army, crime gangs. It isn’t easy to do our work in this territory because they don’t like us taking away the women, their spoils of war. They don’t want women to empower themselves.

How is the armed conflict in Colombia related to trafficking and sexual exploitation?

In a way, the zone of conflict acts as a breeding ground, a place to experiment with new types of trafficking and prostitution. The drugs trade and the sex trade are both important for the economy. It’s a matter of powerful men buying whatever they want, which includes women’s bodies and lives. To them we are just things, tools, easy to buy and easy to manage. On the other side, the government doesn’t even consider trying to abolish prostitution because they reap huge economic benefits from it. From my home city of Pereira, which has 476,000 inhabitants and is in the coffee-growing region of Colombia, we’ve counted 42,000 women trafficked to Spain alone, but many more are taken across Europe and to Japan. It’s an economic benefit that no state wants to lose.

How has feminism helped you to face your past and be able to help others?

I’ll be very honest, I don’t know a lot about law or academia. What helped me to heal was the work I do with other women. To be able to rescue them from danger, open their eyes, to listen to them and alleviate their pain. I am grateful for whatever academics can do to help women, but I want to continue rescuing them and helping them to overcome the situation they’re in.

In Spain, feminism is divided. Some women believe that prostitution should be recognised as work and others think that abolition is the only way. What do you think?

This is not a job, it’s not an industry, it’s not commerce. The scourge of prostitution is nothing more than the use and abuse of women and girls’ dignity. You can’t dress it up. When we talk of industry and work, we think in terms of regulations that apply to both the clients and the people contracted to do a job. I ask, how would you regulate prostitution? By the number of times you penetrate me anally, penetrate me vaginally, suck my breasts? How do I negotiate with a buyer? I don’t get it. I’m tired of hearing it being called a job. You can’t regulate abuse.

Translated by Ben Riddick

Original article in Spanish here