Vila Mimosa

Prostitute holding an english menu at the Vila Mimosa Red-light district in Rio de Janeiro

If you’re in the mood for something different in Rio de Janeiro — something “down and dirty” — you may want to check out Vila Mimosa (or VM, as it’s known to most). VM is a small section in the Praça da Bandeira area, on Rua Sotero dos Reis, that is home to some very seedy and inexpensive brothels. VM is a classic local institution that primarily serves locals. The original Vila Mimosa was demolished in 1966 when the land it sat on was deemed useful by developers. The current Vila Mimosa settled in Praça da Bandeira in the 1990s, after being pushed around by redevelopment. It can get rough, so if you do not look like a local and speak Portuguese, this is not the kind of place to wander around half-drunk and clueless.

Today Vila Mimosa is still active and still one of the best-known red-light districts in Brazil, but it is not a polished tourist sex strip. It is a local brothel-and-bar complex around Rua Sotero dos Reis in Praça da Bandeira, with cheap rooms upstairs, bars below, street vendors, drinking, loud music and that rough Rio low-end brothel feeling. The old fame is still there, but the area should be treated as local, cheap and not especially safe for a lost foreigner.

It is said that Eastern European women fleeing World War I, poor and without their husbands, settled in this red light district of Rio de Janeiro. The first location was the area of the Mangue, what is today Avenida Presidente Vargas, in downtown Rio de Janeiro. The Polish, as they were known, commingled with the native over the years, until they disappeared.

The Vila Mimosa began to decline when the mayor, Pereira Passos, began his project to modernize the city, at the beginning of the twentieth century. The red light district was moved nearly a dozen times as the city was modernized. The city of Rio needed a new red light district, and ended up moving many street prostitutes to Sotero dos Reis in Praça da Bandeira. Initially written with ‘z’ due to the Portuguese, the prime address for punters on the lookout for street prostitutes was the street Pinto de Azevedo, located in the Mangue district of Estácio in Rio de Janeiro. But the site was demolished to build a new administrative center for the mayor. The red light district was then transferred again before the present Vila Mimosa became fixed around Rua Sotero dos Reis.

The Vila Mimosa is a group of establishments located in the same space and linked by the activity of prostitution. Despite having the name of a town, its beginning was in a large shed, with about 2500 square meters, a building constructed in the form of a square, where the front is open and facing the main street (Sotero dos Reis). In the other three lines of the square and in its central part there are prostitution establishments. The passage between the two sides of this square is paved, narrow and covered. The two entrances of the house are identified by yellow and blue awnings placed on the balconies of establishments along the main street. The bars are located at the bottom and the rooms for the realization of the sleazy business are located on the second floor. It appears to be a shopping arcade, in which a store would be side by side, however, it is bars. In this kind of corridor, the sex trade is intense. There are informal vendors who expose their goods on the floor, the window of a business, and others roam the streets.

Before the 2014 World Cup and 2016 Olympics, Rio revamped poor infrastructure around the city and Vila Mimosa was often discussed in connection with redevelopment and transport projects. The current project proposed by the Brazilian government at that time was a 510 km high-speed train that was proposed to run through Vila Mimosa. The project would link the financial capital of São Paulo with Rio, and a $22 billion dollar project was promised in the Olympic bid. That old World Cup and Olympic redevelopment talk is now mostly history, and unless a new confirmed relocation happens, it should be treated as old pressure rather than a current move.

The Vila Mimosa was the birth place of several of Rio’s adult film actresses. The most famous was Natasha Lima, who came to attend one of the episodes of the series Mike in Brazil.

Older local figures said there were just 70 houses in the Vila Mimosa village, each one with at least 10 quarters. Almost all the facilities operate 24 hours. According to the Association of Condominium Residents and Friends of the Vila Mimosa (AMOCAVIM), on the nights of Friday and Saturday there were about 4,500 people, around 3,000 men and 1,500 women, traveling in the complex of Vila Mimosa. Later reports have also described around 78 houses and a large number of registered women, so the exact numbers should be treated as old local estimates, not a fixed current count.

For the safety of Rua Sotero dos Reis an internal security staff is paid by the homeowners. Traditionally, Vila Mimosa has been a cis-female prostitution zone, unlike some other Rio street scenes where travestis and trans sex workers are more visible. The old rule was that transvestites and male prostitutes were not permitted to work at the site, to preserve the tradition, only women were accepted.

For Brazilian law, maintaining sex establishments and prostitution houses is a crime, although prostitution itself is not treated in the same way. Therefore, the Vila Mimosa has always sat in a dirty grey area. The houses of prostitution located in front of the warehouse are old houses that were turned into commercial ventures. Each of these bars works with a legal registration of trade, while the real business upstairs is understood by everyone.

The route of the original design of the bullet train that would connect Rio de Janeiro to São Paulo passed through the Vila Mimosa. Residents, small businessmen, and prostitutes of Vila Mimosa and 150 traders from the streets Sotero dos Reis, Ceara, Hilary and Lopes Ribeiro de Souza, where restaurants, shops and businesses generate one thousand direct jobs and move $1 million per month, would have been displaced with the construction of the railroad.

The design of the new Vila Mimosa, already dubbed the “City of Girls” by prostitutes, was divided into two complexes with five modules, a total of 1,825 square meters. There were spaces for theaters, fashion parades, rooms for training courses, day care for 50 children, parking for 70 cars, health centers and offices. It was designed by the architect William Robinson Ripardo, who was inspired by the works of Oscar Niemeyer. This proposed new Vila Mimosa was discussed in old reports, but it never became the normal replacement for the working district.

The transfer of Vila was obtained by an indemnity given by the Municipality amounting to approximately 300,000 dollars. However, some say that the money was stolen by the former president of the neighborhood association. Despite the detour, madams and prostitutes were able to raise 100,000 reais and bought the shed in the Flag Square, where they remain today.

VM has had its own website, which set records for number of hits in a day in Brazil after it was featured in a newspaper article, but it appears to have lost all its useful content such as maps and photos, having been taken over by an NGO that supports prostitutes. VM is located on Rua Sotero dos Reis, in Praça da Bandeira, near the São Cristovão metro station. Do not plan to walk from the metro station after dark; the surrounding neighborhood can be dangerous.

Current Status and Prices

Vila Mimosa is still active as Rio’s best-known old red-light district, but it is very local and rough. This is not Copacabana escort glamour and not a clean foreigner nightlife strip. It is bars, rooms, women, vendors, loud music, cheap beer, local men and that old brothel-corridor feeling.

Old reports and local talk usually put Vila Mimosa prices in the cheaper Rio range. Short-time sex are said to cost R$50-R$150, with prices changing by time, looks of prostitutes and whether the guy looks foreign. Better-looking girls, longer time or busier nights can push prices higher.

The area around Rua Sotero dos Reis and Praça da Bandeira can be sketchy, especially after dark. Vila Mimosa itself has internal security paid by the houses, but the surrounding streets are still Rio. Robbery, bad taxis, drunk locals, price confusion, dirty rooms and rough street energy are the normal problems. For wider Rio sex guide details, see Rio de Janeiro.

Vila Mimosa

Current Status and Prices

See Also

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