Word: mexico
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This week marks the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. As we recognize the historic occasion of East Germany’s opening, America quietly completes construction of its own wall. The southern border barrier between the United States and Mexico covers 670 miles of southwestern desert between Mexico and the four states it borders. Like the Berlin Wall, the border wall is emblematic of much more than just a boundary between countries. Cutting indiscriminately across ecologically-priceless land, it has become a symbol of governmental disregard for environmental protection...
...twilight falls over Mexico City's Buenavista neighborhood, the traditional night shift begins. A woman in suspenders and a pink dress takes up right outside the doors of an American-owned bank. Across the street, two girls in miniskirts entice clients at the entrance of a subway station. A block down, a group of transvestites and transsexuals bare their wares outside a convenience store. Quickly, the streets fill with hundreds of sex workers, while their clients lurk discreetly in dark corners, vigilant under the threat of a sudden police raid...
...competitive business on the streets of Buenavista, made tougher as the recession has pushed more and more women to make a living here. Mexico's economy is predicted to shrink 7.2% in 2009, its worst slump since the Great Depression. Grim by any measure, the fragile economy is evident in the swelling number of prostitutes working in Mexico City, estimated to have risen 10% in the past year. Residents of Buenavista have long complained of the worsening situation, but now the government has put forth a solution. (See pictures of fighting crime in Mexico City...
Agustin Torres, the newly sworn-in president of Mexico City's central borough, has proposed taking prostitutes off the streets and into a new "tolerance zone," like Amsterdam's red-light district, where sex workers can operate without the risk of police harassment and with access to contraception and health checks. The suggested circuit road on a nearby avenue away from family homes would help protect the sex workers against pimps and assailants, Torres says. "We have a duty to defend these people, who are simply doing their job," he told TIME. "Most of the residents of the area...
...talk of sanctioned prostitution zones has set off alarm bells among Mexico's social conservatives, who fear their capital is turning into a den of sin. Leading the charge is the Roman Catholic Church, which argues that the government should be clamping down on the sex trade, not encouraging it. "It is funny how these groups want to allow women to have abortions and then won't defend them against the suffering of prostitution," says Father Hugo Valdemar, spokesman for the archdioceses of Mexico City. "They should be looking at how much the authorities themselves are involved in the mafias...