Owners of houses of the night in Ocosingo and Altamirano, two of the municipalities which make up the so-called conflict zone, have woven together over the past two years a network of prostitution 'which includes indigenous women' in the eight military camps located in the principal Zapatista corridor in the Lacandon jungle.
Some one hundred women are taken into the areas of Jatate, to satisfy about 3,000 soldiers in the Zapatista communities around La Garrucha, where one of the Aguascalientes of the EZLN was constructed, and in Nueva Providencia, located in the hear of the Zapatista command.
The presence of the Mexican army has provoked interfamilial violence, an increase in the consumption of alcohol and in psychosomatic illnesses as well as the break up of at least 20 indigenous marriages, because the women had sexual relations with the soldiers for payments of 50 pesos.
"In the community of San Quintin and Nueva Providencia the ejido authorities don't rule, the soldiers rule" stated Pedro Gonzalez and Manuel Aguilar, a human rights activist and a professor respectively. "That's the cause of the problems. What the military says is what the community does. There are many women who have left their husbands because they have fallen in with the soldiers, had relations with them. The women have abandoned the men and their children, because now they are conducting business with the soldiers.
Prostitution has changed the daily way of life of the San Quintin Valley, one of the most important corridors in the Lacandon jungle inhabited by the soldiers and base communities of the EZLN.
Here there are children playing with recently used condoms 'like balloons' tattooed women going through the village in shorts and T-shirts with the soldiers; prostitutes bathing nude in the rivers' "showing their wares", say the campesinos'; but above all the private homes turned into houses of prostitution.
The owners of the houses of prostitution in Ocosingo and Altamirano go daily to the camps in La Garrucha, Patihuitz, Puente Jatate, La Soledad, La Sultana and San Quintin, distributing the women from mini-vans or 3-ton trucks. The women stay on the average of eight to ten days in private homes that have been converted into houses of prostitution to satisfy the soldiers.
At the same time about 36 indigenous women from San Quintin and Nueva Providencia took up prostitution to sustain themselves. San Quintin and Nueva Providencia are the only two communities where the Mexican Army soldiers live inside the villages and exert psychological pressure on the villagers, transforming the social, cultural, and political life of the indigenous people.
"Prostitution is strong in the area", stated campesinos interviewed in San Quintin, Betania, La Soledad, Emiliano Zapata and La Garrucha.
Pedro Gonzalez, one of the 30 human rights activists in the region, told La Jornada with concern that prostitution is affecting many indigenous women. "They are going with the soldiers; they've learned; there aren't any more marriageable young women in San Quintin and Nueva Providencia", he stated.
Manuel Aguilar, a professor and a leader of the indigenous organization ARIC-independent, stated that the communities are taking precautions to avoid having prostitution affect the other communities where the majority of the Zapatistas and members of ARIC-independent live. "We are not letting the soldiers come into the villages. We avoid having any contact between the women and the soldiers, and we reject any offers of help which the Mexican army makes".
He explained that many young indigenous women have been paid for prostituting themselves: the soldiers pay 50 pesos (about $7) to married women and 100 pesos ($14) to young women who have not live with a man.
Aguilar added: many families from San Quintin have built their homes from the money that their daughters have earned from going with the soldiers as prostitutes.
This is the new social mosaic that has been created with the entrance of at least 100 women into prostitution in the eight military camps in the zone.
For organizations who are carrying out work in the conflict area, prostitution has provoked an increase in the confinement of indigenous women, due to the fear of being harassed by members of the Army.