Bousbir (, ) was a walled-off

brothel A brothel, strumpet house, bordello, bawdy house, ranch, house of ill repute, house of ill fame, or whorehouse is a place where people engage in Human sexual activity, sexual activity with prostitutes. For legal or cultural reasons, establis ...

quarter in

Casablanca Casablanca (, ) is the largest city in Morocco and the country's economic and business centre. Located on the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic coast of the Chaouia (Morocco), Chaouia plain in the central-western part of Morocco, the city has a populatio ...

Morocco Morocco, officially the Kingdom of Morocco, is a country in the Maghreb region of North Africa. It has coastlines on the Mediterranean Sea to the north and the Atlantic Ocean to the west, and has land borders with Algeria to Algeria–Morocc ...

, established by Resident General Lyautey during the French protectorate.

Origins

Following the Treaty of Fez in 1912,

became a French protectorate. The French authorities were concerned about the spread of STIs, particularly

syphilis Syphilis () is a sexually transmitted infection caused by the bacterium ''Treponema pallidum'' subspecies ''pallidum''. The signs and symptoms depend on the stage it presents: primary, secondary, latent syphilis, latent or tertiary. The prim ...

, amongst the troops stationed in the protectorate. They set up ''quartiers réservés'' (red light districts) and prostitution was highly regulated and only permitted within the quartiers.

Relocation

Hubert Lyautey, the first Resident General of the protectorate, wished to rebuild and expand Casablanca. He engaged French architect Henri Prost to plan the new city. Prost and his associates developed Casablanca's master plan from 1917 to 1922. Within this plan, Prost included a new ''quartier réservé'' away from the city centre. The area was to be run by a company named ''La Cressonière'', who owned the land, financed the building and would collect rents from the occupants. In 1924 the red light district moved to its new location.

Etymology

Bousbir is the Moroccan pronunciation of the first name of Prosper Ferrieu, a French diplomat who owned the land the new ''quartier réservés'' was built on.

Layout

The area was designed in a neo-moorish style by architect Edmond Brion to appeal to the orientalist taste of European visitors. The area enclosed a rectangle 160 metres by 150 metres, surrounded by a high, windowless wall. There was a single public entrance. From the main entrance a wide street led to the main square (20 x 48 metres). Off the main street and square ran a labyrinth of alleys. Each of the alleys had a name that indicated the origins of the prostitutes such as Elfassiya Street, Doukkaliya Street, Lahriziya Street etc. Bousbir included 175 residences, a cinema, a sauna, cabarets, restaurants, 8 cafés, numerous boutiques, a police station and barracks, a prison, and a dispensary.

1924-1955

At any one time between 450 and 680 prostitutes lived and worked there. They sold their sexual service to between 1000 and 1,500 visitors daily. Some came to Bousbir of their own free will, but about a third were brought there after being arrested for illicit prostitution elsewhere in the city. Many were heavily indebted to the “madam” they worked for. The minimum age for the prostitutes was 12. The prostitutes had regular mandatory health checks and were only allowed to leave once a week after gaining a permit from the police. Women and girls "working" in the area were subject to the inflexible authority of by French protectorate with almost no independence provided. They weren't given any salary, and only shared tips given by the customers. Tourists did not just visit Bousbir to purchase sex. It was designed to provide an 'oriental experience' for European tourists. They could sample the Moroccan cuisine, see belly dances,

striptease A striptease is an erotic or exotic dance in which the performer gradually undresses, either partly or completely, in a seductive and sexually suggestive manner. The person who performs a striptease is commonly known as a "stripper", "exotic d ...

or pornographic shows, or just sit on a terrace and watch the women solicit clients while listening to oriental music. Picture postcards were available as souvenirs. Many were taken by French military photographer Marcelin Flandrin. He was influential in creating the stereotype of the "Arab African" prostitute: young, brown, exotic looking (to the European eye) topless and wearing robes or kaftans. Most of the photographs were carefully staged rather than being taken spontaneously.

Religious Religion is a range of social- cultural systems, including designated behaviors and practices, morals, beliefs, worldviews, texts, sanctified places, prophecies, ethics, or organizations, that generally relate humanity to supernatural ...

feminist Feminism is a range of socio-political movements and ideology, ideologies that aim to define and establish the political, economic, personal, and social gender equality, equality of the sexes. Feminism holds the position that modern soci ...

socialist Socialism is an economic ideology, economic and political philosophy encompassing diverse Economic system, economic and social systems characterised by social ownership of the means of production, as opposed to private ownership. It describes ...

and anticolonialist factions put so much pressure on the colonial authorities that they closed the ''quartier réservé'' in April 1955.

References

Bibliography

* * * {{cite book, first1=Paul J. , last1=Maginn, first2=Christine , last2=Steinmetz, title=(Sub)Urban Sexscapes: Geographies and Regulation of the Sex Industry, url=https://books.google.com/books?id=GvnDBAAAQBAJ&pg=PA185, date=10 October 2014, publisher=Routledge, isbn=978-1-135-00833-8 Red-light districts in Morocco Neighbourhoods of Casablanca 20th-century military history of France Military brothels Military history of Casablanca French Morocco History of women in Morocco Child sexual abuse in Morocco Child prostitution Orientalism French military scandals 1924 establishments in Morocco 1955 disestablishments in Morocco 20th century in Casablanca Sexual abuse in the military