Zona Norte officially Colonia Zona Norte , "North Zone neighborhood " is an official neighborhood, as well as a red light district located in Tijuana, Mexico. It is among the largest red-light districts in North America known for its brothels , which present themselves in public as strip clubs and bars, similar to gentlemen's clubs in the United States. Many bars and strip clubs in Tijuana's red light district in which women are the feature entertainment also operate as brothels, which offer attached hotel rooms for short intervals of time.
Many other bars, styled "lady bars", function as less explicit social clubs where prostitutes and nude sex shows are not accommodated on site, but fichas drinks for the working ladies are offered at elevated prices, and freelance prostitutes look for clients. These compare in most respects to the hostess bars in Japan. Illicit drug sales are also common to the red light district, but they occur largely out of the public eye. Heroin use and theft, not common elsewhere in Mexico, are rampant here.
The district is also known as La Coahuila for the name of the primary avenue that runs through it. Miguel F. Martinez, east to west, and from Baja California to Calle Primera, north to south. Prostitution is permitted in Tijuana's red light district, designated a zona de tolerancia , or "tolerance zone. In addition to established brothels, there are prostitutes who work outside on the callejones or alleys and are referred to as paraditas , Spanish for "the standing girls", for their practice of standing on the street to advertise their services.
Paraditas have been regarded as part of Tijuana's cultural history, and attempts to force the women off the streets to curb such public advertising have proven unpopular and unsuccessful. Illegal drug sales occur in Zona Norte.
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Prostitution of children is a problem in Tijuana's Zona Norte, both in the form of voluntary acts as well as illegal child trafficking. Voluntary prostitution by children, often referred to as survival sex in order to obtain a warm meal or a place to sleep for the night is prevalent in the area. Often these children are smuggled across the border into San Diego and other nearby areas.
