ABSTRACT
While sex work takes place in a number of places and locations throughout the Caribbean, the Netherlands Antilles is one of few territories where sex work can legally occur, and the island of Curaçao is host to the largest brothel in the region. Campo Alegre-the Happy Camp-as the brothel was christened in 1949, is still in operation today, and, although it changed name in the mid-1990s to Mirage, is still well known on the island as “Campo.”1 Ask any adult Curaçaoan about the brothel and he or she will effortlessly direct you to an isolated place, not far from the international airport on the Hato plain on the north coast of the island. The brothel is hidden from the main road at the end of a dirt road, appearing from the outside as a fortressed army barrack or even a “concentration camp”—a bare compound surrounded by a solid, high wall with several rows of low zinc-roofed barrack-like buildings with rooms to accommodate over a hundred working women.2 The starkness of the compound is emphasized by a lack of any vegetation, even of cacti-the most commonly found form of undergrowth on the island. An iron gate with a number of guards continually on duty is the only entrance point. The compound is a small, self-sufficient entity, containing not just rooms with beds, but also a bar and stage, casino, store, restaurant, health clinic, and administration buildings, all located in a dusty, shadeless environment far removed from the daily island activities and a distance from the capital, Willemstad. The air of a detention or army camp is further accentuated by the rule that the women may not leave the site between 6 P.M. and 6 A.M., and after sundown
guards patrol the compound to check that the women are all inside and are available to serve clients. Only migrant women are allowed to work in the brothel. They apply for work at Campo through state channels, are registered with the immigration, health, and police departments, and are given work permits for a maximum of three months at a time. The brothel, while originally designed to sexually service and entertain Dutch and American militaries, crew from freighters and oil tankers that docked at the deepwater harbor, and migrant male oil refinery workers, caters today mostly to Antillian clients.
