Maya Goded

Social business it's not only about poverty's issues, but it deals with a lot of other social problems, some of them an effect of poverty and some not directly related to it. I wanted to share with you the work of Maya Goded, a photographer that deals with prostitution in Mexico City, a social problem that causes one of the most high death rate in Mexico.

These photographs were taken in the heart of downtown Mexico City behind the National Palace in a neighborhood called La Merced where women of all ages congregate and learn to survive by selling their bodies. It is there in its tenements and small hotels that the prostitutes share their daily life with street vendors and thieves.

For more than four centuries, La Merced has been a privileged space for sexual commerce, were women have gathered from all over Mexico, from distinct cultures, with different beliefs and indigenous languages.

Economic conditions in Mexico, as in the majority of developing countries, drive these women into the streets where their only option is prostitution. This activity is tolerated by society but the discrimination, to which prostitutes are subjected, provokes exploitation and extortion, violence and murder which usually go unpunished and ignored.