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 News Around the Republic of Mexico | December 2005 
Mexico City Combats Sidewalk Pornography
 Mark Stevenson - Associated Press
| | The porn problem is the outgrowth of weak law enforcement and a long-standing tolerance for tens of thousands of street vendors who hawk everything from pirated DVDs to stuffed animals. (AP) |
Mexico City – Mexico City launched an uphill battle this week against street vendors who have turned many of the city's sidewalks and subway entrances into in-your-face displays of graphic, triple-X movies and magazines.
Some 600 city police confiscated thousands of pirated pornographic videos from a five-block stretch Tuesday in an effort to force some of the city's unlicensed street vendors to be more discreet with their X-rated wares in this socially conservative society.
The city government also signed an agreement with an association of newspaper vendors this week to keep hard-core pornography magazines off front shelves near schools and parks.
The association began handing members fliers about the agreement, along with a placard reading: "Dear customer, out of respect for the family, we do not display adult publications. But if you want them, please ask."
The porn problem is the outgrowth of weak law enforcement and a long-standing tolerance for tens of thousands of street vendors who hawk everything from pirated DVDs to stuffed animals.
The phenomenon started taking off in the 1990s, when cheap video players – and later DVD machines – became available to the general public.
"It's everywhere. It bothers us a lot because we have to pull the kids away so they won't see it," said Ramon Villegas, who heads the Mexico City chapter of a national parents' association. "This can really damage kids psychologically."
Selling pornography is not a crime in Mexico City. Police instead confiscated the X-rated videos because they are – like most DVDs sold in the city – pirated copies, often of U.S. films.
"We do offer original videos, but people won't buy them because of the price," said "Chore," a street porn vendor who would give only his nickname for fear of arrest.
By Thursday, many of the downtown sidewalk porn vendors were back, albeit a little more nervous. Some stood a few steps away from their stalls, apparently so that they could deny having anything to do with the merchandise if confronted by police.
Mexico City's street entrepreneurs often find creative ways of selling goods on the sly.
When police started raiding computer software stands a few years ago, vendors took to displaying their wares in loose-leaf binders that could quickly be flipped open for potential customers.
Other vendors known as "torreros," or "bullfighters" display their wares in small, jumbled piles on blankets that can be swiftly gathered up and spirited off when police appear.
For most officials, that would be preferable to the current situation, in which sidewalks are crowded with 6-foot-tall wire display racks, often crammed with hundreds of porno videos.
For Villegas, of the national parents' association, the trend has come at a heavy cost.
"There is no modesty anymore," he said. "Our values are being lost." |
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