In 1938 the Public Health Services in Guatemala published the Regulation of the Department of Sexual Prophylaxis and Venereal Disease, this manual provided policies that “open[ed] up horizons of moralizing and personal support” to regulate the “sexual problem” of commercial sex workers in Guatemala. This Public Health campaign ran parallel to the urbanization of Guatemala’s rural landscape during the 1930s and 1940s. Guatemala’s commercial sex workers were usually among the working class that did not align with the Guatemalan elite’s expectations of modernization of the country because these women were viewed as diseased and dirty. However, commercial sex work was one way working class women were able to make a living. Thus, stigma for commercial
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Guatemala City, a city founded in 1776 by Spanish Conquistadors is a mixture of modern, colonial, and pre-Columbian attributes and has been presented as the “gateway to all other places in Guatemala. During these two tumultuous decades of urbanization, urban planners and public health politicians, key actors of Guatemala City who made up the ladino elite proposed to modernize the country. Modernization is not only as the dictionary says, “a model of progressive transition from a ‘pre-modern’ or ‘traditional’ to a ‘modern’ society”; such a model allows for open interpretation. The City of Guatemala is distributed into 25 zones, and in the 1930s through 1940s, according to Luis Vielman, an urban planner of Guatemala, saw the construction of infrastructure for public areas and housing where many Guatemalans moved into or helped build. For instance, the Hospital Roosevelt, the central hospital of Guatemala was located in the eleventh zone of the city and where most Public Health officials spent most of their hardworking days. Thus, in the case for …show more content…
These regulations and enforcements stemmed from various previous epidemics of tropical and venereal disease throughout Latin America in the late nineteenth century, especially during times of war. Furthermore, this need to control the spread of disease and its vectors in essence, prostitution and working class women as notions of modernization in the city. In 1938, the Department of Venereal Disease of the Guatemalan Public Health Services published the Regulation of the Department of Sexual Prophylaxis and Venereal Disease This manual holds the lists of laws and regulations pertaining to matters of health in hygiene of commercial sex workers and the men who decide to utilize those services. For instance, working women were required to register themselves at local hospitals when they became aware of venereal disease
Guatemala City, a city founded in 1776 by Spanish Conquistadors is a mixture of modern, colonial, and pre-Columbian attributes and has been presented as the “gateway to all other places in Guatemala. During these two tumultuous decades of urbanization, urban planners and public health politicians, key actors of Guatemala City who made up the ladino elite proposed to modernize the country. Modernization is not only as the dictionary says, “a model of progressive transition from a ‘pre-modern’ or ‘traditional’ to a ‘modern’ society”; such a model allows for open interpretation. The City of Guatemala is distributed into 25 zones, and in the 1930s through 1940s, according to Luis Vielman, an urban planner of Guatemala, saw the construction of infrastructure for public areas and housing where many Guatemalans moved into or helped build. For instance, the Hospital Roosevelt, the central hospital of Guatemala was located in the eleventh zone of the city and where most Public Health officials spent most of their hardworking days. Thus, in the case for …show more content…
These regulations and enforcements stemmed from various previous epidemics of tropical and venereal disease throughout Latin America in the late nineteenth century, especially during times of war. Furthermore, this need to control the spread of disease and its vectors in essence, prostitution and working class women as notions of modernization in the city. In 1938, the Department of Venereal Disease of the Guatemalan Public Health Services published the Regulation of the Department of Sexual Prophylaxis and Venereal Disease This manual holds the lists of laws and regulations pertaining to matters of health in hygiene of commercial sex workers and the men who decide to utilize those services. For instance, working women were required to register themselves at local hospitals when they became aware of venereal disease