The BBCDayane Leite never wanted to be a sex worker, but at age 17, her husband died of a heart attack and she couldn’t attend the funeral.
Her hometown of Itaituba in Brazil’s northern Pará state is at the center of the country’s illegal gold mining trade, so a friend suggested raising money by having sex with miners deep in the Amazon. .
“Going into the mines is a roll of the dice,” she says.
“Women are severely humiliated there. They may be slapped in the face and shouted at.
“I was sleeping in my bedroom and a man jumped out the window and put a gun to my head. And if they paid, they wanted to own women.
Diane successfully raised money for the funeral, and had her first child at age 18. For the past 16 years, like many women in Itaituba, she has worked intermittently in the mines as a cook, a laundress, a bar maid and a sex worker.
Now he has a family of seven to support.
“I wouldn’t say all the women in the city do it, but a lot of them do sex work. So it’s normal. We don’t really care,” says Natalia Cavalcante, 24. Omar had become a sex worker in a remote mining town. Recently, in town to look after her nieces.
Life in the mining villages in the rainforest is tough – most consist of just a dirt strip, a saloon bar and a church. But the miners themselves live even more outdoors, in shacks made of wood and canvas, surrounded by snakes and jaguars, and in total darkness after the generator shuts down. Women working as cooks have to live in these camps alongside men.
Natalia added that every time the miners find gold in the village they have money to spend. Women say they sometimes have to be persuaded to shower before sex.
Running a brothel is illegal under Brazilian law, but Natalia says she didn’t take a commission, just hired bar staff and rented rooms.
Young women approached her for work, and she sometimes paid them for the trip, which is a seven-hour drive from Itaituba.
Asked if she had doubts about putting other women in the work, she replied: “Sometimes I think: ‘I’ve been through it, and I know it’s so Not good.’ But then I think: ‘A girl has a family, sometimes a child to raise. Many girls who go have one or two children.’ So we accept it.”
Natalia had earned a lot of money even before marriage.
Now he has his own house in Atauba, a motorcycle, and a lot of gold that he occasionally gets as payment for sex, two or three grams at a time. His goal is to study, become a lawyer or an architect.
She says some women in Itaituba, nicknamed the Gold Nugget City, have started their own businesses with the money they earn.
But going as a woman in violent and illegal mining settlements is a big risk.
While the environmental damage of landmines is well known, the human cost – which the UN says includes violence, sexual exploitation and trafficking – remains largely unreported.
A precious metals dealer told the BBC that illegal gold from these mines would usually be relabeled as gold from licensed mining cooperatives, before being exported into jewelery and mobile phones or other electronics. will be converted into components of the goods.
The three largest buyers of Brazilian gold are Canada, Switzerland and the United Kingdom. According to the Instituto Escolhas think tank, more than 90% of all exports to Europe come from areas where illegal mining takes place.
It is not unknown for women to be killed in mining villages. Raiele Santos, 26, was found dead last year in the room where she was staying near the Cuiú-Cuiú gold mine, an 11-hour drive from Itaituba.
Her older sister Raylene says a man offered her money for sex and she refused, so he found her later and beat her to death.
“So many women die on a daily basis, so many women,” Relane says.
“I was born in the mines, I grew up in the mines, and now I fear living in the mines.”
A man has been arrested in connection with Ryle’s murder, but has not yet been charged. He denies all the allegations leveled against him.
Brazil’s land covered by illegal gold mines more than doubles to 220,000 hectares in the 10 years to 2023 – an area bigger than Greater London. No one knows how many women work in the area, or even how many illegal miners there are. The Brazilian government says the latter figure could be anywhere between 80,000 and 800,000.
Under President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, the government has taken steps to shut down illegal mines and stop dealers from buying gold, but high gold prices continue to force many men to try their luck.
Diane wants to stop working in the mining areas because of the dangers and hardships she puts her body through, but she is planning what she hopes will be her last trip. Her goal is to earn enough in two or three months to open a snack bar upon her return, though she realizes she may not succeed.
She says that whenever she is alone, walking in the forest, she worries about her children.
“I’ll keep trying, until I can’t anymore,” she says. “Because I think one day, my kids will say: ‘My mom worked so hard. She went through what she went through for us, and she never gave up.'”
Additional reporting by Mariana Schreiber, BBC Brazil
You can see. BBC 100 Women Documentary, Sex for GoldOn BBC iPlayer from Saturday 7 December
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