BETWEEN COMPLAINT AND PROPOSITIONS. A look at the white slave trade and migration sidelines from time works

ABSTRACT

The article addresses the trafficking of women (“white slave trade”) for prostitution during the same time that the so-called Great Immigration to Brazil was underway (late nineteenth and early twentieth century). Its goal is to establish a dialog with writers of the period, shedding light on the factors that led to the internationalization of prostitution and the intricacies of the network of intermediaries which ignored borders. The sources used herein include police cases against procurers and accusations and proposals by doctors, lawyers and journalists. The methodology includes content analysis of the texts and the evidentiary method, which permits a view focused on the dialog between structural logic and everyday practices. The ultimate goal is to present a new look at a topic which is far from getting lost in the past, but rather spans the long term, and is always ready to invade the backdrop of the mass displacements that characterize modern times.

Palavras-chave:
Migratory Processes; Great Immigration; White Slave Traffic

RESUMO

O artigo aborda o tráfico de mulheres (tráfico de brancas), para fins de prostituição, tendo por parâmetros temporais os anos que enquadram a chamada Grande Imigração (final do século XIX e início do XX). Sua proposta é estabelecer um diálogo com autores de época, dando visibilidade aos fatores que levaram à internacionalização da prostituição e aos meandros da rede de agenciamento que ignorou fronteiras. As fontes utilizadas incluem processos policiais movidos contra caftens, bem como denúncias e proposições feitas por médicos, juristas e jornalistas de época. As opções metodológicas contemplam a análise de conteúdo dos textos e o método indiciário, que permitem um olhar focado no diálogo entre lógicas estruturais e práticas do cotidiano. O objetivo final é apresentar uma releitura de um tema que, longe de ficar perdido no passado, formula-se como história de longa duração, sempre pronto a invadir os bastidores dos deslocamentos de massa que caracterizam a época contemporânea.

Palavras-chave:
Processos migratórios; Grande Imigração; Tráfico de Brancas

Her name was Irma, and she was a Jew. Her deep black eyes contained the mystery of life and death at sea. To me she seemed sad and resigned [...]. She went to her husband’s meeting and closed herself off with a strict silence. He had heard a lot of talk that Odessa was one of the most significant ports in that trafficking of women, but at first sight he did not want to believe that that girl, so fresh and rosy, so innocent and reserved in her ways, had also gone to those butchers of live meat that the fields of Poland and Russia provide the two Americas. (BARRETO, 1920, p. 204).

Young women like Irma, “fresh and rosy [...] innocent and reserved in her ways,” be-came prostitutes in Rio de Janeiro against their will. Stories and trajectories very much like hers can be found in novels, stories, and chronicles, as well as in texts written by lawyers and journalists of that time. In these writings, they are the protag-onists of dramas that occur on the sidelines of the massive migrations which marked the second half of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth century.

In times characterized by the development of the sciences, literature and arts, by the explosion of pleasures and actions, by reinventions in the night and by mimicry and the desire for progress in the countries penetrated by Europe, the discourse of freedom collid-ed with new forms of subjugating female bodies which were domesticated by violence.

Most of the women who fell victim to trafficking came from Europe (particularly Eastern Europe) to supply the two major cities in South America, Buenos Aires and Rio de Janeiro:¹ expressions of the modernization and progress underway in South America. This back-stage scenography that unfolds from these movements is described in the narratives of foreign travelers moving through Rio de Janeiro, including Koseritz:

The police, in these past days, are once again confronted with the pimps and madams, i.e., with the men and women [...] who traffic the girls, im-porting from Europe and exploiting them here. Prostitution is an inevitable evil in a city like Rio de Janeiro [...]; but here this shameful trade has be-come so extensive, the unfortunate women who sell their charms are ex-ploited so disgracefully that the government for some years has decided to take rigorous action. (KOSERITZ, [1885] 1980, p. 228).

Describing what he considered a “shameful trade,” the traveler condemned what had already emerged as a worldwide phenomenon: trafficking in women for prostitution,² a constituent part of migratory flows from Europe to the modernizing world.

During the same era which gradually saw slavery abolished, the expansion of coffee and subsequent circulation of money, and significant urbanization, Brazil’s capital experienced an expansion in the red-light district, which provided fertile ground for a new type of trade: women for prostitution,³ cheap goods destined to produce a type of pleasure that was “consistent” with the new times, on the margins of (and in contrast with) the arrival of “civilization.”⁴

Three main aspects should be highlighted in Koseritz’s text. The first is his statement that prostitution was “an inevitable evil in a city like Rio de Janeiro,” reproducing the idea that it was a “necessary evil”⁵ inherent within a city which had expanded and diversified. The second aspect is his accusation that trafficking (which he defined as a “shameful trade”) had acquired a high profile in the capital city, with its victims becoming the object of “disgraceful” exploitation by their agents, which in the latter case contrasted with the murmurs of freedom that marked the era. The last aspect of note is his conclusion that the problem should be a continuing concern of the Brazilian authorities.⁶

This “white slavery,” which was characteristic on the sidelines of the vigorous process of globalisation⁷ that projected Europe onto the rest of the world, fulfilled demand, in turn enriching organized crime networks which were ready to ensure a continuous supply of women to a market that did not stop growing.⁸ For this to happen, young women were sold like mere commodities and moved to distant lands, where they were subjected to violence every day. Many of these women never returned to their homelands, and tended to live out their last days completely abandoned in hospitals or nursing homes.⁹ When they died, depending on their religion, they were buried in shallow graves in clandestine cemeteries, without anyone to claim their bodies.¹⁰ In an era that advocated for freedom and individuality, the trafficking of women was a major contradiction, redefining the scourge of slavery while fully entrenched within the process of commodification that was deeply rooted in a world aiming at economic integration.

The white slave trade itself and the means of fighting it led to ever-present works decrying the trafficking of women, describing the practices and routes which were used. They were also the topic of important legal arguments and proposed policies to monitor, fight, and oppose this trade. Some were used as sources in this present article.

The pioneering spirit of Clímaco dos Reis in discussions on trafficking

In a text published in 1879 meant to forward reflections on trafficking of white women to the Minister of Justice at that time, Clímaco dos Reis tried to show Brazilian authorities the characteristics, strategies, and routes of trafficking which were directed at Rio de Janeiro. This work was considered a type of birth certificate for this subject in Brazil; its groundbreaking spirit becomes even more visible when we consider that at the time it was written, only a decade had passed since the first conventilhos (brothels) had emerged in the Brazilian capital. According to Reis, these were distributed in six or eight townhouses located on Rua da Carioca (in the underbelly of the city) and housed around 50 women from Central and Eastern Europe, mainly from Poland, followed by Russia, Austria, and Germany. According to the description by Clímaco dos Reis,

The procurer goes to Russia, Austria, or Germany, choosing the capital or surrounding area to make his conquest, or to reach his prey beforehand.

At any of these points he presents himself as a trader in jewelry or fashions from South America, showing himself in public places with the rhinestones he brings from here, belching riches and claiming to be a traveler for health reasons.

[...] He presents himself as bored with life, living far from his homeland without the friendly arm of a beloved wife.

He says he could marry in Brazil, a land of blacks, with horrible women, [...] where there is no Hebrew colony, where no girl can be found with the beliefs of his parents.

The ceremony is carried out in a few short days, and the pleased and joyful girl says goodbye to her parents and begins a journey with her husband, the supposed fashion dealer from Rio de Janeiro.

They will embark in Marseilles, which is where all the procurers set off. (REIS, 1879, p. 11).

The main strategies which characterized this trafficking were thus described by the author, namely:

• The role played by Central Europe as the starting point from which these movements irradiated, heading toward the port of Rio de Janeiro and onward to other locations in the country (RAGO, 1991);

• The prominent role of Polish, Russian, Austrian, and German women as the human merchandise which was trafficked;

• The professional disguise used by the agents of trafficking, the businessman who had become wealthy abroad, which they used to travel through European towns and villages;

• The network of contacts procurers maintained with their “brothers” by blood and religion (in the case of Jewish pimps);¹¹

• The promise of marriage in Brazil or arranged marriages hastily conducted in the young women’s villages: the main forms of seduction and uprooting;

• The role played by Marseilles in the roads that led to South America, which was explicitly stated in many legal cases expelling pimps from Brazil.

Clímaco dos Reis’ description is substantiated by the itineraries which became public knowledge through investigations and police cases. Many of these became news articles, and many were neglected in the archives until they became essential documentation for scholars on this subject, particularly legal cases expelling foreigners.¹² We can hypothesize that many stories were the result of “hearsay” which circulated widely at the turn of the twentieth century. But some of the practices reported show that trafficking was a dramatic reality, especially when these are compared with certain clues found in the cases, such as birthplaces and cities of departure, completed itineraries, declared activities, and place of residence in Rio de Janeiro. One illustration of this is the case brought against Jayme Kellman:

Jayme Kellman was an illiterate Russian from Odessa, and was 45 years old when he was arrested and prosecuted in 1928. He had entered Brazil from Buenos Aires via Montevideo. According to the text of the case, he lived by exploiting women he had brought to Brazil as his wives. The first of these fell ill shortly after she arrived in Rio de Janeiro, and was immediately abandoned. He then returned to Buenos Aires. There he married once more, and again moved in the company of the new “wife” to Rio de Janeiro. (AN, mod. 101, pac IJJ7166).

The main facts by Clímaco dos Reis also appeared in the police cases, demonstrating that the author had effectively focused on the theme in order to provide as reliable a description as possible to the Brazilian authorities.

Condemnations by Ferreira da Rosa

The 1896 book O lupanar (1896),¹³ by Francisco Ferreira da Rosa,¹⁴ brings together articles originally published in the newspaper O Paiz under the title Podridão do vício [The Rot of Vice], which dramatically condemned the traffic in women. The text, which is a reference for scholars on this subject, provides readers contact with statements from men and women who passed through the 4th urban precinct,¹⁵ which is why the author thanks deputy Luiz Bartholomeu de Souza e Silva for the access granted to the cases that passed through his station.

As a result, Ferreira da Rosa’s accusations are accompanied by dialogs with the accused. Despite the biased and discriminatory manner with which the author links the figure of the procurer with Jews, the book is important in shedding light on the intricacies of trafficking and the ways in which Rio de Janeiro was involved with the international routes. According to Ferreira da Rosa, the Brazilian capital had become a

little-known Babylon in which an immense court of degenerates lives freely and prospers, creatures who we cannot say enjoy the protection of the laws, because that would be the greatest shame of any nation, but who have the ability to shelter themselves under them, stitching themselves up flush against the walls of the Palace of Justice, and becoming mixed up with the folds and wrinkles of the severe robe that falls from its shoulders. (FERREIRA DA ROSA, [1896] 2009, p. 16)

Demonstrating the many ways in which traffickers extricated themselves from the charges against them, by “stitching themselves up flush against the walls of the Palace of Justice,” the author describes the procurer with harsh and cutting words, considering him the most miserable of beings: “the product of human degeneration.” Here emerges his larger objective: to submit his contributions for the “moral sanitation of Rio de Janeiro.”

The caften [procurer] is the individual who enslaves women now at the end of the

nineteenth century. The caften is the man who lives idly, trading comfortably in the ignorant girl he will tear away from the bosom of cultured Europe. The caften is the miserable being that exploits the lowest of the low, treads upon vice, wields the whip, and snatches blood and gold from the flesh of the women subject to his ownership (FERREIRA DA ROSA, [1896] 2009, p. 22).

And so began, from here to various cities in the old world, the pilgrimage of the recruiters of these unfortunate women. The process used to deceive unsuspecting families in the poor villages is still the same today, with minor variations. The procurer goes to Russia, Austria, or Germany, choosing the area around the capital to make his conquest or to reach his prey beforehand.

In any of these places he presents himself as a trader in jewelry or fashions from South America; he shows himself in public places with the rhinestones he brings here, belching riches and using the demands of his business to explain his travel. [...] He claims to be a widower and unhappy with the celibacy that is required in Rio de Janeiro because of the lack of righteous women. He is then presented to some families, who are honored with his visit and to whom he offers clothes which are of little value, but much more impressive than the rags they are wearing. After a few days he has selected his victim, to whom he proposes a hurried marriage, because he has to leave. All the parties agree and the union is made in the blink of an eye. (FERREIRA DA ROSA, [1896] 2009, p. 24).

Some noteworthy elements in the author’s description of the trafficking networks were mentioned by Clímaco dos Reis: the origin of the traffickers and of women being trafficked, the procurer’s profession as a trader in farms and fashion, the contrived search for a wife and a quick marriage, the motivation of potential wealth in other lands, and the targeting of poor families wanting to marry off their daughters.

Thanks to his relationship with the deputy from the 14th precinct, and in addition to the transcribed excerpts from the cases and some letters which were appended to them, Ferreira da Rosa was able to conduct interviews with some of the men he called cáftens. Of these, some had their own chapters in the book: André Goldmann, Sigmond Richer, Adolpho Gluck, Herman Moscowitz, Lazaro Schwartz, Isidoro Klopper, Trobias Zilberman, Ighgnacio Friedman, German Kaminer, Isaac Boorosky, and Adolpho Spitzer. Much emphasis was placed on Sigmond Richer, the so-called “head of the cáftens,” who he described as an individual with “heavy physiognomy” with a “red, rough mustache, dark and slightly crooked teeth, long ears, congested eyes, prominent temples, and well cared-for hair,” who frequented the Suisso and Criterium cafés in Tiradentes Square.¹⁶

The interview with Richer, which was conducted in the company of a police officer at a jewelry store on Rua S. Francisco de Assis, illustrates the characteristics assumed by professional procurers and the strategies they used. It should also be noted that the interviewer had a predetermined script, but constantly intervened whenever he encountered evasive, distorted, or off-target answers.

FERREIRA DA ROSA (FR) - Are you Mr. Siegmon Richer? Sigmond Richer (SR) - Yes sir.

FR - What do you do for a living? [...]

SR - I am a jewelry dealer.

FR - Oh! So you must have a license... SR coughed and said:

SR - Not me… I don’t have jewels of my own, I do business on behalf of others.

FR - Ah! So you are an agent... a negotiator....

SR - Yes sir, I am an agent.

FR - For what store?

SR - Mr. Moraes’s store, on Rua do Sacramento, number 11.

FR - Moraes! I know him. Who doesn’t know him... And your nationality?

SR - Brazilian.

SR - Brazilian?! And you are a natural of where?

SR - Brazilian, he insists.

FR - No, you may have become a naturalized Brazilian, but you were not born in Brazil. Where were you born?

SR - In Austria.

FR - Now, yes. And how long have you been in Rio de Janeiro?

SR - Since 1871. (FERREIRA DA ROSA, [1896] 2009, p. 35-36).

As for the international circuits through which the procurers moved, Richer’s response when asked if he had come directly to Rio de Janeiro was enlightening with regard to his international activities. According to Richer, he had moved through England, France, and Italy, as well as British India, and had stayed in Argentina for three years, according to him always working in the jewel trade.

Despite Rosa’s pointed questions, at no time during the interview did Richer admit to any guilt, and also seemed to follow a script which had been prepared in advance and practiced continually. When the interview ended, he pointedly denied the accusation of being “head caften:”

FR - Everything is fine. You are Brazilian...

SR - Honest and upstanding, he interrupted.

FR - [...] You are an honest and upstanding Brazilian, a voter, you sell and show jewelry by Lorraine, Queluz, and Pindamonhangaba; but you are said to be head of the cáftens, how can this be?

SR - I know, but it is false, he said, smiling.

FR - But do you know that this is widely said about you?

SR - I know, I know, but it is false. (FERREIRA DA ROSA, [1896] 2009, p. 36)

To explain the rumors, Richer stated that the leader was an individual named Isidor Klopper,¹⁷ who had left for Buenos Aires, but that he knew many individuals (Jews, even if they did not follow the doctrine of Israel “to the letter”) and that these came to him when they needed favors or loans, reaffirming once more that unlike Klopper, his money was honest and came from the jewelry trade (FERREIRA DA ROSA, [1896] 2009, p. 38).

But other statements countered Richer’s claims, in a document entitled Infamias dos cáftens [Infamies of the cáftens] sent by Klara Adam to the newspaper Gazeta de Notícias, on April 22, 1880, which was reproduced by Ferreira da Rosa. Klara claimed she had managed to escape from the brothel on Rua da Guarda Velha where Richer had placed her, facing the risk that her family would be told about her activities in Rio de Janeiro.

[...] Let the public know that in 1878 I lived in Brieg, in Prussia, in the home of my dear parents. Poor but honest, I was hired by Siegmond Richer and his wife Augusta Joanna or Leonor Jacobowitz, to come and work as a seamstress in a fashion shop they were to have in Brazil, stating that dedicated and honest work would bring me great profits, making a fortune, so that I could marry and be very happy. [...] But, the most terrible of misfortunes awaited me in Marseilles. In the hotel we went were various cáftens also waiting for the ship, and of these Siegmond chose José Catze to ruin me, and one night, with a powerful narcotic, I was miserably dishonored by this despicable [...]. This fact is described in the investigation that recently addressed the crimes of the cáftens, the illustrious Drs. Bulhões and Felix da Costa. [...]

For thirteen long months Sigmond Richer held me in that brothel, mistreating me, giving me only the bare minimum to wear, feeding me poorly, treating me himself for illnesses to avoid spending money on the doctor or apothecary, not letting me ever leave the house. (FERREIRA DA ROSA, [1896] 2009, p. 48-51).

According to Klara’s statement, she was threatened when she refused to follow Richter to Buenos Aires, and only managed to escape with great difficulty. In revenge, Richter had written to her mother, saying that her daughter had lived in his house very honestly, “like a member of the family, working as an honest woman and earning money,” until losing her head for a “NEGRO,” “like everyone in Brazil,” and eventually fleeing with this man and then becoming “everyone’s woman.”

Even though Klara Adam did not mention whether she had had access to the letter Richer wrote to her family, the richness of detail and the addresses and persons cited in her narrative are surprising. On the other hand, she recounts the main strategies followed by the procurers. Is it repeated hearsay, or a report of reality? Even though both are possible, we should considered that Klara had no fear of exposing herself publicly, as she herself mentions, seeking out the newspaper not to deny that she was a prostitute, but rather to contradict the contents of the letter Richer had written to her family, thereby exposing the caften who, according to her, had only become Brazilian to avoid deportation.

In the routes described by Ferreira da Rosa and reproduced in Klara’s statement, the procurers generally left from Marseilles: “the trading post of all the cáftens,” passing through Buenos Aires before arriving in Rio de Janeiro. The procurer, who was responsible for two or three women according to Ferreira da Rosa’s account, sold the women that remained with him; others he left in the care of a “distinguished gentleman” charged with returning them later (FERREIRA DA ROSA, [1896] 2009, p. 25). Upon arrival at the Brazilian capital, new ruses landed the young women in the brothels and set them on a path of no return. According to the author, this was the story of “almost all the Russian, Polish, Austrian, Turkish, and Romanian whores that infest[ed] the [...] capital” (FERREIRA DA ROSA, [1896] 2009, p. 25).

The contributions of Louis Fiaux

The work of Louis Fiaux (1847-1936),¹⁸ which was published in 1896, is dedicated to analyzing the complex system of “tolerance” and its commercial ramifications (FIAUX, 1896). Because of the author’s knowledge on this topic and the details he presents, the text is prominent among works on the roots of selling women like merchandise to supply regulated brothels: les maisons de tolérance and similar establishments.¹⁹

Although Fiaux did not analyze international trafficking, which connected Europe, the Americas, and Africa through a single “commercial” network, by focusing his reflections on France and neighboring countries he demonstrated how from the beginning of the nineteenth century, a network of new “traders” (who in fact traded in women) sustained a system based on the relentless pursuit of new human goods, and thus contributed to a better understanding of what from the middle of the century came to be trafficking in white women.

It is worth remembering that the French system of tolerance spread not only throughout France, but also was soon introduced in Austria, with Vienna hosting intense traffic of prostitutes and pimps; in the market for women, Vienna played a special role as the connection between Western, Central, and Eastern Europe. Meanwhile, the image of Paris during the second half of the nineteenth century as a model of civilization and a beacon for the world caused the tolerance regime (implemented to varying degrees) to spread globally.

According to Fiaux, the model adopted in France spread to Belgium, Holland, French Switzerland, Italy, and Spain, reaching countries in the Midi (Center) like Austria, consequently creating pressure with regard to the forced movement of women and driving the expanding number of suppliers. In this way, a true “French freemasonry of tolerance” expanded beyond the borders of France with the formation of a network that particularly captured in its net poor and unprotected women, in order to meet a demand that diversified and took on an international aspect.

An Italian, an authentic Spanish woman charms the clientele of a city in Flanders; a Flemish woman and an English woman are appreciated in Central Europe; a Parisienne from the Seine livens up the banks of the Scheldt!²⁰ Furthermore, these trips have the great advantage of removing the inmates from any influence other than those who exploit them, tying them ever closer to the Maison: the clues are lost, complaints are less feared, and violations easier. (FIAUX, 1896, p. 56. Emphasis ours).

The same logic of offering “novelties” to meet this demand, and the uprooting of women who fell into the webs of this “new” trade still applied when, after Europe was projected onto the rest of the world with the internalization of trade that accompanied the age of imperialism, the trafficking of white women was defined as an international crime. The seduction, kidnapping, rape, and assorted violence that subjugated the women were not invented by traffickers from the east, and neither was the trade itself, which included men and women scattered throughout the spaces where young women circulated alone: the entrances to factories and hospitals, railway stations, plazas, parks, etc.

Two notes reproduced by Fiaux allow us to understand the ins and outs of this “new” trade in humans, characterized by mutual interests and secrets with cryptic language used in correspondence. The first was written by a “supplier” to the owner of a house of tolerance:

Madame,

I am sending you a colis de choix [top-notch woman], at the current rate of 300 francs. I also have at your disposal several extra-fine articles in blond or red shades, at your pleasure and according to the usual price.

Loyalty and discretion, and the future for us. (FIAUX, 1896, p. 57).²¹

The note was written by Charles Cocq, a hotel waiter and recurrent frequenter of houses of tolerance in France and abroad. According to Fiaux, at the time the book was written Cocq had five convictions against him for the same offense and because of «the crook he was.»

The second note, which Fiaux kept anonymous, was written by a brothel administrator who felt deceived by a supplier:

This is a disgrace, [...] you stole from me. Yesterday the doctor removed your Caroline. She is a rotten girl. How could you send me a creature in that state? She will remain at least three months in the hospital, in the Santa Tereza quarter. It is a matter of good faith. X goes to Paris five days from now, he will visit your home on the 9th. I will not pay two hundred francs: I consent to losing the 43 francs from the train and that is it. X told me: this is real thievery. (FIAUX, 1896, p. 58).

In this case, there are four people involved in the transaction: the administrator of the Maison, the supplier of the merchandise, the woman sold (Caroline), and Mr. X, who is an intermediary in the financial transaction. All are characters in a single system, responsible not only for placing the “merchandise” in “closed” establishments, but also for maintaining this merchandise’s continued indebted state. As Fiaux mentions: “Debt [was] the guarantee of presence and obedience” (FIAUX, 1896, p. 114).

The expansion of this “modern” form of prostitution later reached modernizing countries, particularly in the Americas, the flip side of opening the southern markets to European products, capital, and models. Within this same logic of expansion, Western Europe looked to the east, also imposing a certain way of living which included “professional” forms of offering sex and pleasure.

The road to Buenos Aires, according to Albert Londres

Buenos Aires quickly became prominent in the circulation of European prostitutes throughout the large cities in South America, and was defined as a point of passage and distribution for women throughout all of South America. The role of this city stood out in the work of the journalist Albert Londres (1884-1832),²² in his reference book aptly titled Le chemin de Buenos Aires (la traite des blanches) [The path to Buenos Aires (The trade in white women)], published in Paris in 1927. In it, the author analyzed the sources of trafficking in Europe, comparing and seeking points of contact between cases from France and in Eastern Europe. He also devoted himself to deepening analysis on the Atlantic crossing and the role of procurers in the Argentine capital.

With respect to the French women, who he called franchuchas, Londres highlighted the existence of four categories, establishing differences that could be defined as prostitutes by choice and those who became prostitutes thanks to “various pitfalls.” According to the author:

There are the women who are eager to come.

There are women who come because a man was able to convince them.

There are women who come with the sole idea of eating every day, and feeding their [loved ones], no matter how.

These are those who know.

There are those who are hesitant, those who do not want to ‘go alone’ but who resist when they are on the edge of the precipice and know they face the risk of being pushed. These do not ignore that, when they stick their nose in the window, they risk being caught in the act, but they prefer to stick their nose in the window.

There are those who do not know.

Some of these are found by everyone who travels. [...] (LONDRES, 1927, p. 217).²³

With regard to the typical woman in the fourth category, “those who do not know,” the author outlines not only her profile but also her route:

Twenty-one years old, with a legal passport, with very valuable charm, a clerk in a store in Marseilles. A real store.

She is on her way to Buenos Aires. It is her first trip. On board, she confides her hopes to the passengers:

- I will earn four times as much as a clerk in Argentina...

The passengers, who know that line well, smile.

- In one year I’ll be able to come see my mother, with my sister...

- Look, a woman will tell her, you seem to be an honest girl. Who got this job for you?

- A man and a lady. Good people. I met them at a restaurant where I was having lunch. They welcomed me like a friend. They often came along with me to the store. They told me that they had lived in Buenos Aires, they had friends there and they could find a good situation for me. They wrote. I saw the letter and the response. Their friends accepted me immediately. They even sent me the money for the trip.

- What are your friends’ names?

- Mr. and Mrs. Majou.

- What do they do?

- They have two large stores. They will come pick me up when I arrive. I should have a blue handkerchief in my hand.

- Young lady, this is what is called white slavery. Do you know what it means? We will explain. She cries. The passengers take her to the captain [...] (LONDRES, 1927, p. 218-219).

Besides the franchuchas, Polish women also get their own special chapters. In these, the author describes the intricacies of trafficking from Eastern Europe, as well as the role of pimps from this region, considering that “trafficking in white women, the real thing, what the term evokes in the popular imagination, it is the Polish men who do it” (London, 1927, p. 171).

Londres contrasting the French and Polish women, categorizing the former as the “aristocracy” of prostitution, worth “five pesos”, while the latter comprise the “third state,” worth only “two pesos.” But he points to poverty as an element common to both, a factor that stands out throughout the entire process:

The pimp [...] only exploits what he finds. If he didn’t find this merchandise, he wouldn’t sell it. Only he knows who makes it.

He knows the factory where all this raw material comes from, the large factory, Poverty [...]

Poverty is like all states. Only those who live there know it. The rest don’t even think about it. And when they do talk about it, they speak of it like a country they have never seen. I mean to say they say utter nonsense. (LONDRES, 1927, p. 254).

According to this author, the pimps are men who “work in misery,” recruiting young people from poor villages in the countryside, with marriage a common strategy for removing the young women from family life and their homelands.

The hierarchical and networked organization is another aspect that captures the author’s attention:

There is a boss. He is a pope. His decisions are not debated. When he releases a papal decree... I mean it is to be obeyed! There is a sub-head, the secretary of state, and look! Each province: Rosario, Santa Fé, Mendoza each have their clubs. The club has its president, and the president has his vice president. All of this falls under the authority of the pope who writes the decrees!

He chooses the men who will leave and go back there! From Rio da Prata to Vístula! He is the one who distributes the “houses.” He is the one who decides the marriages. /.../ It is he who regularly, each month, fixes the amount each one needs to pay the police. (LONDRES, 1927, p. 172).

Unlike France, where the women were recruited on the streets, the Polish women were generally recruited from within their homes:

It is essential to get in with the families. The work is not like in France, street work, they operate in the home. They initially go to the parents, and then, only then, to the daughter. [...] Families who have several daughters are most sought after, because they have two advantages: they have a deeper poverty, and a guaranteed return. They are serious traders, they predict! They «stock up!» The oldest is twenty years old. They engage her! The second oldest is seventeen, the third, fifteen. They trap them! They make them come to Buenos Aires, each one in turn, when they are ripe and good to eat!

In Warsaw, Krakow, in Lvoff, in villages like «my» village, old women who they pay all year have no other job than to point out the good merchandise. [...] (LONDRES, 1927, p. 172-174).

But the “good merchandise” referred to in Londres’s text was perishable, and therefore required continuous replacement. When their charms could no longer be turned into profit, and they no longer served the interests of their exploiters, the women were abandoned to their fates, in a land that was not their own and without any network of family support to rely on. Particularly for this reason, the international conventions which were signed starting in 1902 included provisions requiring various countries to protect these women, but this was not always the case.²⁴

International actions against trafficking: the contribution of Evaristo de Moraes

In a 1921 work entitled Ensaios de pathologia social [Essays on social pathology] (1921), Antonio Evaristo de Moraes (1871-1939)²⁵ outlined important history on international attitudes related to trafficking in women and joint efforts by the various governments involved in combating this trade. Thus, it is necessary to point out that the chronology and history presented here are based on the work by this author.

The first clamor against the problem of white slavery came from Hungary in 1864, with the complaint that women were exported from there (via Rotterdam) to the Americas. About a decade later, in 1877, revelations from the London gazette Pall Mall shocked the world by showing that Victorian England was also involved in the international routes. In France, these accusations were addressed by the Union Internationale des Amies de la Jeune Fille, based in Neuchâtel, with proposals that later became part of the discussions at the 1902 Paris Conference. On the other side of the Channel, investigations by the London-based National Vigilance Association confirmed the existence of a flourishing trade in women uniting Europe, the Americas, and Africa; they also pointed out the deception and innocence of the victims in the face of the recruiters (men or women), who presented themselves as able to get these girls good placements abroad.

The trade in white women was highlighted at the 5th International Prison Congress in Paris in 1895. At that time, internationalization of the offense of incitement of prostitution was advised. Four years later (1899), London hosted the First International Congress on the White Slave Trade,²⁶ which explicitly recommended internationalization of this crime. Other important contributions from this congress were: 1) acknowledgment that the largest importing marketswere located in South America; 2) the indication that the houses of tolerance facilitated this trade; 3) the information that the two largest cities in South America, Buenos Aires and Rio de Janeiro, absorbed the largest numbers of women who were victims of trafficking; 4) the observation that the overwhelming majority of these women came from Austria-Hungary, Russian Poland, Italy, Romania, and France; 5) the fact that Jewish women were most prevalent (MORAES, 1921, p. 323).

At the beginning of the twentieth century, a new conference on this topic was held in Amsterdam, and brought together various European countries. During the conference, the Italian delegation stated that every year roughly 1200 young women from Austria and Russia left the port of Genoa, with cities in South America as their final destinations.

Another conference was held in 1902, this time in Paris, and featured a decisive step toward accepting the hypothesis that government intervention involving various foreign ministries was needed to suppress trafficking. To this end, the governments of Brazil and Argentina were invited to participate in the discussions. Only Brazil accepted the invitation, via its diplomatic representative stationed in the French capital. At this conference, procurement was qualified as an international crime, and from this qualification, cooperative measures to be taken by the countries affected by trafficking were discussed. Also in 1902, trafficking was the theme of the 9th Congress of the International Union of Criminal Law, in Saint Petersburg.

Two years later, in 1904, the International Agreement for the Suppression of the White Slave Traffic was signed by France, Germany, Belgium, Denmark, Spain, The United Kingdom (Great Britain, Ireland, and British overseas territories), Italy, the Netherlands, Portugal, Russia, Sweden, Norway, and Switzerland. Through this agreement, all previous proposals and decisions took on new dimensions, and specific resolutions were defined with regard to the measures to be taken for port surveillance. From this time onward, associations were founded in various countries to protect victims of trafficking, and were responsible for supporting a number of women in various parts of the world.

Brazil agreed to the accord through Decree 5591 of July 13, 1905. Three years later, the draft bill to modify articles in the Brazilian Penal Code was submitted to the Chamber of Deputies, in order to adopt the principles which were approved at the 1902 Conference. After approval, the project became Law 2992 of September 25, 1915.

Delays by some participating countries in signing the agreement led to the convening of a new conference, again in Paris. This began on April 18, 1910, and ended on May 2 after four plenary sessions were held. After the sessions ended, the International Convention for the Suppression of the White Slave Traffic was signed on May 4, 1910, with the inclusion of distant countries such as China and Japan. The convention, which was amended by a protocol approved by the General Assembly of the United Nations on December 3, 1948, remained in force even after the end of World War II.

Throughout the course of the discussions involving the countries affected by white slavery, the initiatives always included the need for special attention to the borders, highlighting the importance of police action at railway stations and places where passengers depart and arrive. But these actions always proved ineffective, because of corruption among the police (and even diplomatic staff) throughout the process. On the other hand, the agreements signed led to the arrest and conviction of procurers in their own countries where they operated, which also proved to be inefficient, since deportation tended to be emphasized as a form of punishment in Latin American countries. In Brazil, for example, incitement of prostitution was a motive for expulsion in all the ordinances that regulated the entry and residence of foreigners on Brazilian soil, as of the decree of January 7, 1907.²⁷

Combating procurement as an international crime involved collaboration. An example of this clear overwhelming need was the agreement between police in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, and Uruguay, more specifically between the cities of La Plata, Buenos Aires, Rio de Janeiro, Santiago, and Montevideo, joining forces in order to fight the movement of pimps throughout the southern cone.

This agreement, which was signed in Buenos Aires at the end of the International Conference of Police which took place October 11-20, 1905, in article 2 characterized “individuals who habitually and for profit traffic(ked) in white women” as “dangerous people.”²⁸ This collaboration can be seen in the following report:

Mr. Major Trajano Louzada, inspector of the maritime police, yesterday arrested the caften Abraham Cherman (sic) who arrived here on board the ‘Amazone’ with two ‘slaves,’ and was expelled by the Montevideo police.

Abraham, who had not been here for eight years, booked passage under the assumed name of Paschoal Delgizo. On the same vessel nine other procurers were found; these were prevented from disembarking, which was also the case with five more who were aboard the Danube, headed to Europe.

Abraham was removed to the central police station, where he was fined 27 pounds sterling, and the women who were with him were freed. (MORAES, 1921, p. 154).

The cooperation in the southern cone objectively included the transfer of Argentine know-how to establish the Secretary of Fingerprint Identification (Gabinete de Identifcação Datiloscópica) in Rio de Janeiro; this facilitated identification of the cáftens circulating between Buenos Aires, Montevideo, and the Brazilian capital who changed their identity or appearance frequently in order to evade police action.

Voices of women who were victims of trafficking

Police inquiries and cases revealed the routes traveled by women who left their homelands one day with the dream of building a better life, but became victims²⁹ of trafficking, burying their dreams once and for all. Some were lured away by deceptive job offers, and on the way were seduced by agents of trafficking. Others were married and traveled in the company of husbands they barely knew and who quickly became their tormentors. Still others, without other prospects, fell into the web of professional “protectors” after leaving hospitals or being dismissed from their jobs. Not a few were raped, and the debt for their passage was sold and resold. All, inevitably, lived out experiences they had never dreamed, characterized by subjection and physical and/or symbolic violence.

Two stories repeated by Ferreira da Rosa can be considered model cases.

The protagonists of the first are two Austrian women: Klara Hohn and Maria Iarosch. The first, Klara, was “an interesting girl, black hair, with a slash of a mouth, red lips, and straight, even teeth. [She was] not yet 19, [and born] in Wikowitz in Austria” (FERREIRA DA ROSA, [1896] 2009, p. 180). Her family, lured by the news that good jobs existed in Brazil, decided to pay her passage to the country.

A similar process occurred with Maria Iarosch’s family. According to the author, she was 20 years old, “without beauty” but had “an intelligent look” and a serious and “heavy” shape. “She wore a blouse identical to Klara’s, who was her friend, covered by a thick jacket that [she must have] brought from her country. On her head she wore a black straw hat, adorned with blue ribbons” (FERREIRA DA ROSA, [1896] 2009, p. 181).

During their overland journey toward the port where they would board the ship that would take them to South America, the two stayed at a hotel in Bremen (Bremer-Schlüssel). In this hotel they were pursued by two unknown Germans, who said they were traveling to New York. Klara was attacked and seduced and experienced sex for the first time, unlike Maria, who according to her statement hid in a room to escape from her seducer. In Antwerp, the two young women found a woman known as Anna Scheler who offered them placement and support, offering to serve as their guide in a country (Brazil) she described as the land of opportunity.

When they arrived in Rio de Janeiro, Anna took them to a house in the center of the city, where they finally learned that they had been deceived and that no employment was awaiting them in the Brazilian capital. They were then directed to prostitution. In her statement to the police, Maria stated that:

[...] she was extremely discontented with this house, which because of her poverty she was obliged to accept; and that she had nowhere else to go, she was tired of going to Anna, asking her for the placement she had promised, and Anna always responding that she would try to arrange it but that for now, she had to continue subjecting herself there, since she owed debts in the house and needed to pay them. (FERREIRA DA ROSA, [1896] 2009, p. 183).

From this evidence, Anna Scheler was charged as a procurer, but thanks to her possessions and network of relationships, she hired a lawyer who (as Ferreira da Rosa had predicted) eventually got the charges dropped.

The author tells another story of a 21-year-old woman named Sophia Chamys, who he describes as having “an angular face full of bruises and scratches” (FERREIRA DA ROSA, [1896] 2009, p. 162). She was the daughter of hay merchants and lived on the outskirts of Warsaw. She was only 13 years old and traveling with her parents when she met Isaac Boorosky, who offered his services to the family arranging work for her in the city of Lodz. With the consent of her parents, Sophia went with Isaac, and stayed in the home of his mother. A few days later, however, she found out that Isaac was married and lived in a nearby house where several women also lived.

A week later, Sophia’s father appeared at Isaac’s mother’s house to bring her home, but another conversation with Isaac convinced him to let her stay, possibly because of the difficulties the family faced and the need to arrange a placement for Sophia. According to Ferreira da Rosa,

In the evening, [Sophia] went with Isaac to Ballet, as far from Lodz as Maxabomba is from downtown Rio de Janeiro. There she ate herring, drank beer, felt groggy, and slept. When she woke, Isaac was in bed next to her, and the signs she found on her clothing and some strange feeling made her believe that something had happened while she was sleeping.

Then Isaac began to speak of love and persuade her that he wanted her for his wife; she responded vehemently to the statement that they were already married, contesting such an ‹untruth.› (FERREIRA DA ROSA. [1896] 2009, p. 162).

Sophie was taken to a hiding place in the forest owned by Isaac but managed to escape and return to Lodz, hoping to reach her parents’ house. Without money, she eventually accepted an offer of shelter offered by an individual named Libet. But Libet had already negotiated with Isaac to return the young woman, and he imprisoned her in a new hiding place, in the city of Kovin. After a month, pregnant and desperate, the young woman fled to Warsaw, managing to reach her parents’ house on foot.

But Issac followed her, and three days after her arrival he appeared at the family home to negotiate his marriage with the young pregnant girl. Sophia changed hands again, because after reaching Lodz, she was “entrusted” to Chumpaisk, who was traveling to South America, supposedly to meet a future husband.

Pregnant and sick, Sophia landed in Buenos Aires after 22 days of travel by land and sea, and was taken to the house of Madame Nathalia. She then understood she had been sold to Chumpaisk. This sad fact, as well as her helplessness in a foreign land, led the young woman to appeal to the good emotions of Madame Nathalia, pleading to be repatriated. But the promised journey, instead of to Europe, took her to Rio de Janeiro. By this time, Sophia was seven months pregnant. Alone, with no resources and unable to speak Portuguese, she went to the address she had been given on the boat: Rua Sete de Setembro, 165, in the center of the city, where there were several brothels. But the young woman’s misfortunes did not stop here, according to Ferreira da Rosa, and she was subjected to new transfers, travels, and exploiters, and it is impossible to know where the child she was carrying ended up.

Another typical case of this trade in women, with many similar elements, can be seen in the story told by Cissie Guteridge, a 16-year-old Englishwoman, who gave a statement in the case to deport Laura Schunkler in 1917 (AN, 101, IJJ7166).³⁰ Like Klara, Maria, and Sophia, according to what she told police Cissie also lost her virginity at the hands of traffickers. Like them, she was lured, deceived, and imprisoned in a brothel. Like Sophia, her debt was sold.

When she gave her statement to the police, Cissie did not speak or understand a word of Portuguese, and consequently required an interpreter. She stated she had been brought to Brazil by Laura, who she had met in the house of a man named Levy: Levy had taken her in after she left her parents’ home and roamed the streets of London. She went to Brazil with Laura, convinced that it would be a short trip. Only in Rio de Janeiro did she learn that her travel debt had been sold to Laura, and that she was now obliged by this protectora to give herself over to prostitution as a way of paying off the expenses she had accrued.

At the end of her statement to the police, Cissie expressed her desire to return to England, requesting assistance from the Brazilian authorities, since she had no documents or money for the passage. Whether or not this desire was realized, however, was lost to history.

Cissie’s testimony becomes significant when we look at certain details of her statement. The first is her youth, along with her inexperience and her young dreams. At the same time, the fact she did not speak or understand Portuguese, making it impossible for her to communicate easily, facilitated her complete domination. Furthermore, the fact that she had left her family’s home opened wide possibilities for traffickers, which in the large cities roamed the streets, parks, squares, hospitals, police and train stations, and other busy public spaces. Also notable is the sale of her debt, demonstrating that the female body was treated as a commodity, subject to the laws of the market. Finally, it should be noted that her testimony proves that Victorian England was no stranger to trafficking (which had been declaimed previously), and that London was no different from Paris in terms of the strategies that were used.

The story of Cissie, like so many other women who were similarly seduced, deceived, and exploited, shows us the underbelly of the Belle Époque in Europe and in America, which was in no way beautiful or glamorous, but rather permeated by violence against poor women with few prospects.

Behind the scenes of the modernity and massive migrations which characterized the turn of the century in cities such as Rio de Janeiro, many foreign women were also exploited in “homes” located in the red-light districts of the city, as shown in statistics from the 12th Police Precinct of Rio de Janeiro in 1912. According to figures provided by the deputy, there were 94 houses of tolerance in just one of the policing districts which spanned the capital city. In these houses 160 foreign women worked: 33 were Russian, 30 Italian, 20 Spanish, 16 French, 15 Portuguese, 10 English, nine German, seven Austrian, four Argentine, four Turkish, three Romanian, two Polish, two Moroccan, and one Swiss. The Russians, Germans, Austrians, and Poles alone comprised 51 women, accounting for 18.25% of the total.

Throughout the urban center, foreign prostitutes (whether they worked by choice or were victims of trafficking) made considerable profits for their exploiters, some of whom had well-padded accounts in Europe. This was the case of Noel Renuci, a Frenchman from Marseilles, who had lived in Rio de Janeiro since 1927 after moving through Buenos Aires, Montevideo, and Porto Alegre. He was prosecuted in 1929 with the goal of deportation; his file showed that he maintained a draft account in the British Bank of South America, and the statement from this account showed that he frequently sent sums of money back to Marseilles. When accused of procurement, he immediately withdrew his defense and left for France, paying all the costs involved in the journey (AN. mod. 101, pac. IJJ7179).

The international circulation of money from prostitution was also part of the case against Augusta Nudelman, a Polish woman from Warsaw. According to testimony from one of the women she exploited, Augusta loaned money with interest which was sent to Buenos Aires, and was accused of being a procurer for various pimps who were deported from Brazil (AN. mod. 101, pac. IJJ7131).

The white slave trade analyzed herein was confined to a particular period of time, and though it survived the turbulence of World War I, it did not visibly extend beyond World War II. But this does not mean that human trafficking is a thing of the past, since it has not ceased to expand and diversify. Rather, over time it has maintained very similar methods and strategies within the massive displacements that characterized the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and was reborn with great vitality in the twenty-first century, now that the discursive euphoria of the end of history has passed.

Even amid the Information Age, trafficking is more alive than ever, alongside wars, mandatory displacements and refugee flows, and continues to meet old, new, and updated demands. Yesterday as well as today, it enriches organized crime, earning profits that are only surpassed by trafficking in drugs and weapons.

As Malareck warns, in addressing the trafficking that emerged after the disintegrationof the Soviet Union: “Once [...] women are recruited - captured or stolen - a tremendously effective system of trafficking is put into motion. Criminal organizations use various mechanisms to carry their human cargo across international borders” (MALARECK, 2005, p. 45-46). As in the past, this “cargo” goes to stock brothels in distant lands, and to meet new demands it also feeds the pornography which already exists on the Internet, with no shortage of “websites that offer women for sale.” (MALARECK, 2005, p. 97) The trafficking of women, a drama extending from the past into the present, continues to challenge governments and countries, with no decrease in the corruption and discrimination which work together to keep these women subjected to violence and to various forms of silencing.

Referências

• ARQUIVO NACIONAL (AN). Seção do Poder Judiciário (SPJ) . Processos de expulsão, Módulo 101, pacotilhas IJJ7 131, IJJ7 166, IJJ7 179.
• BARRETO, Lima. Aventuras do Doutor Bogóloff. In: BARRETO, L. Historia e sonhos Contos. Rio de Janeiro/São Paulo/Porto Alegre: Edit. Brasileira Ltda, 1920.
• BRASIL. Collecção de Leis da República. Decreto1.641, de 7 de janeiro de 1907.
• BRASIL. Collecção de Leis da República. Decreto 4.247, de 6 de julho de 1921.
• BRASIL. Collecção de Leis da República. Decreto 4.267, de 17 de julho de 1921.
• BRASIL. Relatórios do Ministério da Justiça de 1884 e 1885.
• FERREIRA DA ROSA, Francisco. O lupanar: estudo sobre o caftismo e a prostituição no Rio de Janeiro: primeira parte da série de artigos publicados n'O Paiz sob a epigraphe a "podridão do Vício", Rio de Janeiro, 1896. Revisão de Ayrton Gonçalves; prefácio de Verena Kael e Matilde Teles; arte e diagramação de Angely Fleitas. 1. reimpr. Rio de Janeiro: [s.n], 2009.
• FIAUX, Louis. Les maisons de tolérance: leur fermeture. Paris: Masson et Cie Éditeurs, 1896.
• KOSERITZ, Carl von. Imagens do Brasil. Belo Horizonte; Itatiaia: São Paulo; EDUSP, 1980.
• LONDRES, Albert. Le chemin de Buenos Aires (La traite des blanches). Paris: Albin Michel, 1927.
• MALARECK,Victor. Las Natashas tristes Esclavas sexuales del siglo XXI. [Trad.]. Madrid: Kailas Editorial, 2005.
• MENEZES, Lená Medeiros de. Os estrangeiros e o comércio do prazer nas ruas do Rio (1890-1930). Rio de Janeiro: Arquivo Nacional, 1992.
• MENEZES, Lená Medeiros de. Os indesejáveis: desclassificados da Modernidade Protesto, crime e expulsão na Capital Federal (1890-1930). Rio de Janeiro: Arquivo Nacional , 1996.
• MORAES, Evaristo de. Ensaios de patologia social: vagabundagem, alcoolismo, prostituição, lenocínio. Rio de Janeiro: Livraria Editora Leite Ribeiro, 1921.
• MORAES, Evaristo. Os judeus. Rio de Janeiro: editora, 1940.
• PEREIRA, Armando. Sexo e prostituição. Rio de Janeiro: Record, 1967.
• RAGO, Margareth. Os prazeres da noite: prostituição e códigos de sexualidade feminina em São Paulo (1890-1930). Rio de Janeiro: Paz e Terra, 1991.
• REIS, Clímaco dos. Os cáftens ou Os exploradores de mulheres: considerações a respeito oferecidas ao Exmo. Sr. Ministro da Justiça, o conselheiro Lafayette Rodrigues Pereira. Rio de Janeiro: Typ. De Moralinho & Mont'Alverne, 1879.
• SOUZA, João Francisco de. Memória sobre as medidas a adoptar contra a prostituição no paiz. Rio de Janeiro, 1896.

Notes

• 1
  There are no conclusive statistics on the number of women who entered Brazil in this situation. There are indications that approximately 10,000 women of Jewish origin were involved. Cf. Pereira (1967, p. 197).
• 2
  The term prostitution here is defined as using the body in exchange for monetary resources. Consequently, the word prostitute does not refer to only those women who were recruited and forced to work in brothels.
• 3
  Farmers and traders made rich by coffee circulated in the city, and the import and export trades fed urban expansion and the influx of foreign workers.
• 4
  During this process of transition, prostitution by slaves for profit expanded for some time. But over the years black prostitutes tended to move to the port area, where they represented a novelty for sailors who disembarked there.
• 5
  This concept was based on the idea that there was a basic inequality between men and women with regard to gender and sexuality, which was seen in the differentiation between honest women and prostitutes, with the former responsible for reproduction and the latter offering pleasure of the flesh. The “queen of the home” thereby contrasted with public women, who were considered “full of vice” and “immoral,” and many medical theses indicated that prostitution led to sterility.
• 6
  In 1894 there were already records of 10 individuals expelled after accusations of incitement to prostitution. Cf. RMJ (BRASIL, 1894, 1895, p. 62).
• 7
  It is interesting to note that the expansion of trafficking also comprises the processes of globalization, allowing comparison between the start and the end of the twentieth century. A problem in the past and the present, trafficking has maintained certain basic characteristics for centuries.
• 8
  Today, according to the UN, approximately four million women are bought and sold around the world every year for sexual exploitation. For the European Union Commission on Immigration Affairs and Human Trafficking (IOM), human trafficking is a business which is much more profitable and less dangerous than drug trafficking. While the latter crime may lead to sentences ranging from 10 to 12 years in prison, the former involves penalties that do not exceed one or two years, and is much more difficult to describe and prove because of the complex reactions between the parties involved and the web of promises.
• 9
  This refers to the fact that, until the end of the twentieth century, some of these women survived in nursing homes supported by the authorities of the countries where they were taken, in compliance with international agreements.
• 10
  A Polish women’s cemetery was recently found in Rio de Janeiro, in the Inhaúma district (Cemitério Israelita de Inhaúma - Rua Piragibe, n. 99).
• 11
  Discourses on the overwhelming role Jewish procurers played were often imbued with varying degrees of anti-Semitism, considering that there were cáftens of all nationalities, religions, and races.
• 12
  The deportation cases are found in module 101 from the Brazilian National Archives. Cf. SPJ, pacotilhas IJJ7 126 a IJJ7 179. These cases were initially addressed by the author in her doctoral thesis defended at USP in 1996, and later were published by the Universidade do Estado do Rio de Janeiro press. Cf. Menezes (1996).
• 13
  The text was reprinted at the initiative of Verena Kael and Matilda Teles, authors of the documentary entitled Essas mulheres [These women], and was kindly provided to me for my participation in the film as a specialist contributor.
• 14
  Francisco Ferreira da Rosa (1864-1952) was born in Angra do Heroísmo, in the Azores, and arrived in Rio de Janeiro at age 14 on April 1, 1878; he worked in trade until December of 1884. After the Proclamation of the Republic, he became Brazilian. In 1893 he was a writer at the newspaper O Paiz, and in 1894 he was appointed professor of Portuguese at the Colégio Militar, where he became an honorary lieutenant colonel. He died in Rio de Janeiro at age 87.
• 15
  According to the author, the cáftens’ meeting points were all within this district.
• 16
  The author mentions that these cafés ceased to be meeting points for traffickers after the accusations from O Paiz and the expulsion of the procurers to rented rooms in Catumbi, Rio Comprido, and on Rua Frei Caneca.
• 17
  Isidoro Kopler, which gets his own chapter in the book (p. 101-107), received the military rank of Alferes. Pressured under the accusation of procurement after the 4th Precinct police opened an investigation, he fled to Buenos Aires.
• 18
  Louis Fiaux was a physician, a specialist in social hygiene, a member of the Société d’Anthropologie de Paris, a Municipal Councilor of the 1st arrondissement in Paris (1882-1884), and Chevalier de la Légion d’Honneur (1874). In addition to the work cited, he wrote other books on the subject and related topics. All his texts cited herein were translated by the author.
• 19
  The maisons de tolérance created during Restoration France were highly regulated and subject to surveillance, registration with the police, and periodical medical inspections.
• 20
  The Scheldt River originates in the Alps and flows into the North Sea, crossing France, Belgium, and Holland.
• 21
  Fiaux’s work was translated by the author and revised by Thierry Rudloff.
• 22
  Albert Londres was born in Vichy, central France; he was a journalist and poet, and worked at the Le Matin, L’Excelsior, and Le Pétit Parisien newspapers During World War I he was a war correspondent and after the war he made several other trips to Africa and Asia. He was especially interested in the suffering of the poorest of the poor, which included his interest in the French women who had been taken to Argentina and forced into prostitution. In several articles, he called for collective responsibility to combat trafficking, stating that it fed off poverty. His role in journalism made his name the most prominent among work done by francophone journalists. All his texts cited herein were translated by the author.
• 23
  Londres’ work cited here was translated by the author and revised by Thierry Rudloff.
• 24
  At the beginning of the twentieth century, there were two international conventions to which Brazil was a signatory: 1904 and 1910. The 1910 accord notably included the participation of countries in the Far East such as China and Japan.
• 25
  The attorney Antonio Evaristo de Moraes graduated in law at age 45, when he already had extensive knowledge of forensic practice. He was sensitive to popular causes, arguing that crime had socio-economic causes. He was one of the founders of the Socialist Party in 1902 and became famous for defending the thesis that leftist intellectuals were obliged to ally themselves with the working class. With the arrival of Getúlio Vargas to power and the creation of the Ministry of Labor, he became part of Vargas’ team and worked to consolidate labor laws.
• 26
  Term coined by Louis Renault, referring to the former traffic in black slaves.
• 27
  The decree of January 7, 1907 stipulated, among other reasons for expulsion, “Duly verified vagrancy, begging, and incitement to prostitution” (Article 1, item 4. Emphasis ours). In 1921, two new decrees entered into force. One, dated July 17, 1921, was mainly intended to suppress anarchism, but made pimping a non-bailable crime. The other, dated July 6, 1921, regulated the entry and residence of foreigners on Brazilian soil, establishing (among penalties for other crimes) deportation for anyone “who escaped another country after conviction for the crime of murder, theft, robbery, bankruptcy, falsehood, smuggling, bribery, counterfeiting, or procurement” (Decree no. 4,247, dated 6 July 1921, art. 1, item 5. Emphasis ours).
• 28
  Item “e” of article 2 of the agreement signed in Buenos Aires between the police of La Plata and Buenos Aires (Argentina), Rio de Janeiro (Brazil), Santiago de Chile, and Montevideo (Eastern Republic of Uruguay).
• 29
  Please note that we do not wish to victimize the prostitute, because we understand that in many cases this activity was chosen by these women. But we do believe that the women who fell into the trafficking networks were victims.
• 30
  After 1915, a reform in the Brazilian Penal Code (Legislative Decree n.2,992) made it a crime to maintain or exploit houses of tolerance. Afterwards, some foreign women were prosecuted for violating the deportation laws and were processed as procurers.

Data availability

Data citations

ARQUIVO NACIONAL (AN). Seção do Poder Judiciário (SPJ) . Processos de expulsão, Módulo 101, pacotilhas IJJ7 131, IJJ7 166, IJJ7 179.

Publication Dates

• Publication in this collection
  2017

History

• Received
  19 Sept 2016
• Accepted
  20 Oct 2016