Prostitution in Peru

Prostitution between adults is legal for women and men over 18 years of age if they register with municipal authorities and carry a health certificate.{{cite web |url= https://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/hrrpt/2008/wha/119170.htm |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20090226174609/http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/hrrpt/2008/wha/119170.htm |url-status=dead |archive-date= 2009-02-26 |title= 2008 Human Rights Report: Peru|accessdate=2007-11-29 |website= US Department of State |date= }} Brothels must be licensed. The vast majority of prostitutes work in the informal sector, where they lack health protection.{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=6WYZ0wNpZfIC&q=Prostitution+in+Peru&pg=PA179|title=Men who Sell Sex: International Perspectives on Male Prostitution and HIV/AIDS|first=Peter|last=Aggleton|date=1 January 1999|publisher=Temple University Press|accessdate=9 January 2017|via=Google Books|isbn=9781566396691}}{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=-5WyPfynlwMC&q=Prostitution%20in%20Peru&pg=PA518|title=Encyclopedia of Prostitution and Sex Work|first=Melissa Hope|last=Ditmore|date=1 January 2006|publisher=Greenwood Publishing Group|accessdate=9 January 2017|via=Google Books|isbn=9780313329708}} Individual police officers tolerate the operation of unlicensed brothels.{{cite web |url= http://www.unhcr.org/refworld/publisher,USDOS,,PER,484f9a3528,0.html |title= Trafficking in Persons Report 2008 - Peru|accessdate=2009-11-16 |website= The UN Refugee Agency |date= }}

Child prostitution is illegal. Penalties for pimps and clients of underage prostitutes range from four to eight years in prison. Child prostitution is common in the country, and especially in Peru's isolated Amazonian mining communities.{{cite web|url=http://www.huffingtonpost.com/alfonso-daniels/child-prostitution-boomin_b_1086278.html|title=Child Prostitution Booming in Peruvian Amazon|first=Alfonso Daniels Emergency Media Manager for Save the Children|last=International|website=HuffPost |date=14 November 2011|accessdate=9 January 2017}} In the Amazonian department of Madre de Dios the illegal exploitation of gold has dramatically increased the recruitment and coercion of adolescents into prostitution through false employment offers.{{cite web |url= http://www.peruviantimes.com/la-republica-expose-on-child-prostitution-in-peruvian-amazon-mining-towns/10555 |title= La Republica: Exposé on child prostitution in Peruvian Amazon mining towns|accessdate=2009-11-16 |website= Peruvian Times |date= 10 August 2008}}

While poverty and inequality are important causes of child prostitution, part of the problem is also a social attitude that views sex—including paid sex—between adult men and adolescent girls as normal.

Luis Gonzalez-Polar Zuzunada, president of La Restinga (an Iquitos-based nonprofit organization that works with at-risk children) said about teenage prostitution:"It's not seen as a crime. People think that's the way it is. Here, anyone is a potential client."{{cite web |url= http://www.catholicnews.com/data/stories/cns/0602361.htm |title= In Peruvian jungle city, church works to help child prostitutes |accessdate= 2009-11-16 |website= Catholic News Service |date= |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20100907044506/http://www.catholicnews.com/data/stories/cns/0602361.htm |archive-date= 2010-09-07 |url-status= dead }}

The Peruvian government recognizes child sex tourism to be a problem, particularly in Iquitos, Madre de Dios, and Cuzco.{{cite web |url= https://2009-2017.state.gov/documents/organization/123363.pdf |title= Human Trafficking|accessdate=2009-11-16 |website= US Department of State |date= }}

{{see also|Human trafficking in Peru}}

Peru is a source, transit point, and destination for trafficked persons. The majority of human trafficking occurs within the country.

Many trafficking victims are women and girls from impoverished rural regions of the Amazon, recruited and coerced into prostitution in urban nightclubs, bars, and brothels, often through false employment offers or promises of education.

Domestic trafficking occurs particularly in districts located in the Andes or the Amazon jungle, to bring underage girls into cities or mining areas to work as prostitutes. Victims are recruited by friends or acquaintances and through newspaper and Internet advertisements or street posters offering employment; some victims are recruited by local employment agencies that offer poor young women from rural areas relatively well-paid "restaurant work" in Lima, Cusco, major coastal cities, and abroad.

The principal victims and groups at high risk for trafficking are children and young women from rural or poor urban areas, persons living in poverty, persons with disabilities, victims of domestic abuse, illiterate persons, and persons lacking birth certificates or other identification documents.

Peru also is a destination country for some Ecuadorian and Bolivian women trafficked for commercial sexual exploitation.

The United States Department of State Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons ranks Peru as a 'Tier 2' country.{{cite web |title=Peru2018 Trafficking in Persons Report |url=https://www.state.gov/j/tip/rls/tiprpt/countries/2018/282730.htm |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180730202849/https://www.state.gov/j/tip/rls/tiprpt/countries/2018/282730.htm |url-status=dead |archive-date=30 July 2018 |website=U.S. Department of State |accessdate=30 July 2018}}

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Category:Society of Peru