Mexico tourist magnet Tijuana cleans up brothels
The Mexican border city of Tijuana, a weekend playground for U.S. visitors, plans to give prostitutes electronic health cards and regulate brothels in an effort to clean up its gritty image.
Under a bylaw passed last month, the city is forcing about 50 clandestine brothels to meet public safety and hygiene standards, like putting clean sheets on beds, or face closure.
“We have a lot of prostitution but few controls,” Martha Montejano, head of the council’s health and human development commission, said on Wednesday. “This aims to combat sexually transmitted diseases and bring order to the massage parlours.”
Prostitution is illegal in Mexico but brothels are often left alone by law enforcement agents.
Under the regulation, some 7,000 male and female sex workers in Tijuana, a city of 1.2 million people, will carry health cards with a computer chip to show they have passed monthly health checks.
The Tijuana bylaw is due to come into force in the coming days, perhaps as early as Friday, and a team of 30 inspectors already has begun visits to brothels, which are often thinly disguised as massage parlours.
The bylaw is the first serious attempt to regulate the sex trade in the city, which has served as a playground of bars, brothels and racetracks for visitors from California since the U.S. prohibition era in the 1920s.
Brothel operators back the measure, which they say allows them to operate in the open for the first time, while providing safeguards for both sex workers and clients.
More: today.reuters.co.uk
Origin of the city's name
Through the years, historians have investigated where the origins of the name of the city of Tijuana came to be.
One legend says that it was the name of a ranch in the area, property of "TÃa Juana" – Aunt Jane. In actuality, it is recognized that name comes from the Yuman Indian language from the early inhabitants. In other documents there are mentions of "La Tia Juana", "Tiguana", "Tiuana", "Teguana", "Tiwana", "Tijuan", "Ticuan", "Tijuana". Based on the Yuman language, historians have come to recognize Tijuana originating from "Tiwan", meaning close to the sea.
Sports and entertainment in Tijuana City
Tijuana boasts two bullfighting rings, a racecourse and a dog track located in the old Hipódromo de Agua Caliente, the franchise of a soccer team in first division, a Mexican baseball team that plays the league during the summer, professional and university theater, the opera, as well as diverse festivals along the year.
Tijuana City
Tijuana is the largest city in the state of Baja California, Mexico. Tijuana is also the most northerly city in Latin America. It is known as the corner of Mexico and consequently of Latin America. The city is bordered to the north 41 kilometers by the county of San Diego, California, United States; to the south, by the municipalities of Playas de Rosarito and Ensenada; with the municipality of Tecate to the east; and to the west, by the Pacific Ocean. The municipality of Tijuana has an extension of 1,727 square kilometers and includes part of the Coronado Islands
Puebla : Tourist attractions
Puebla's Zócalo
Important locations include "La Capilla del Rosario" a chapel inlaid with gold and milk, "El Barrio del Artista" where exquisite arts are produced and the bustling "El Centro y Zócalo" where the centuries old Cathedral and the "Palacio Municipal" remain the heart of the city. Red double-decker buses, known as "turibuses", give tourists an opportunity to enjoy the city's architecture, museums and monuments located at the historical downtown. Another tourist attraction is the zoo, "Africam Safari", where animals are not caged, but roam in liberty, while visitors drive through their "habitat" in their cars. Finally,
Geography
Tijuana is at 32°53′ N 117°02′ W. This border city just south of San Diego, California, USA, is sometimes considered a mix of Mexico's good and bad: known for its economic prosperity, popular discos, and shopping areas, Tijuana is also considered to be Mexico's biggest illicit drug and prostitution center; a majority of the prostitutes are women from other Latin American countries, mainly Central America, who have hopes of crossing the border, ultimately, into the United States.
History
The area in which the city of Tijuana is situated in a region once inhabited by the Kumiyay Indians, a tribe of Yuman-speaking hunter-gatherers. Europeans first arrived in 1542, when the Spanish explorer Juan RodrÃguez Cabrillo toured the coastline of the area, which was later mapped in 1602 by Sebastián ViscaÃno. In 1769, Father Juan Crespà documented more detailed information about the area that would one day be called the Valley of Tijuana and Father JunÃpero Serra founded the first mission of Alta California in San Diego.
More settlement of the area took place near the end of the mission era
Economics
The U.S. dollar is an acceptable form of currency in businesses all around the city and vicinity.
Tijuana is particularly famous among the millions of U.S. college students who flock to its location each year in search of an easily accessed place with few inhibitions and a legal drinking age of eighteen.
Due to Tijuana's proximity to the USA and its cheap labor, it is an attractive city for companies to establish extensive industrial parks comprised of maquiladoras where foreign companies employ thousands, usually in assembly related labor. This makes Tijuana an attractive city for poor migrant workers originating from the center
Tijuana is the largest city in the state of Baja California, Mexico. Tijuana is also the most northerly city in Latin America. It is known as the corner of Mexico and consequently of Latin America. The city is bordered to the north 41 kilometers by the county of San Diego, California, United States; to the south, by the municipalities of Playas de Rosarito and Ensenada; with the municipality of Tecate to the east; and to the west, by the Pacific Ocean. The municipality of Tijuana has an extension of 1,727 square kilometers and includes part of the Coronado Islands located
4 arrested in Mexico on child selling charges
Four people - including a U.S. citizen and a legal American permanent resident - have been arrested in this border city and charged with child selling after a couple offered $5,000 to a father in exchange for his 3-year-old son, police said Saturday.
Jose Luis Garcia told authorities he was walking with his son on Octava street in Tijuana on Friday when he was approached by a couple who said they wanted to purchase the youngster, who would then be sent to the United States by a couple who ran a child-selling
Tijuana City : Culture and education
The city has various schools of superior studies, such as conservatory music, dance schools, plastic art schools, schools for science of the arts, and with various universities and technical institutions.
The city is the seat of the COLEF (College of the Northern Frontier), an institution of scientific investigation and superior education. Their main focus is the study of the problems of the Mexican border with the United States.
For cultural activities, Tijuana has the CECUT, the Tijuana Cultural Center. As the cultural impression of the city, the CECUT has inside its installation, a theatre, lecture rooms, video
