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Prostitution in Chile
Although adult prostitution is legal in Chile, bordellos are not. Report on Human Rights Practices 2006: Chile. United States Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor . This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain. Several hundred women were registered as prostitutes with the National Health Service. Police often detained prostitutes (usually as a result of complaints by neighborhood residents) on charges of "offenses against morality," which could lead to a 50,000 pesos fine or five days in prison. Procurement or pandering is illegal and punishable under law. Inducing a minor (below age 18) to have sex in exchange for money or other favors is illegal. Punishment ranges from three to 20 years in prison and a 520,000 pesos fine depending on the age of the minor. A police sexual crimes brigade was specifically charged with investigating and prosecuting pedophilia and child pornography cases.
Most human trafficking victims are women and minors trafficked internally for sexual exploitation. Chilean women and girls respond to false job offers and subsequently are subjected to forced prostitution. Victims are also trafficked from the country to Argentina, Peru, Bolivia, the United States, Europe and Asia. Foreign women from Argentina, Bolivia, Peru, Colombia, and Paraguay, in addition to Asian countries such as China, are lured to Chile with fraudulent job offers and subsequently coerced into prostitution .
Child prostitution is common in the country. In 2003, the Government of Chile estimated that there were approximately 3,700 children involved in some form of commercial sexual exploitation; in 1999 UNICEF put the number of child prostitutes much higher, estimating that there were approximately 10,000 children between the ages of 6 and 18 involved in prostitution .
External links
Child Prostitution
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This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article Prostitution in Chile
