BBCDayane Light never wanted to be a sex worker but at age 17 her husband died of a heart attack and she couldn’t pay for a funeral.
Her hometown in Brazil’s northern state of Pará is at the heart of the country’s illegal gold mining business, so a friend suggested she raise money by having sex with miners in the Amazon.
“Going into the mines is a roll of the dice,” he says.
“Women are seriously humiliated there. Can be slapped in the face and scolded.
“I was sleeping in my bedroom and a man jumped through the window and put a gun to my head. And if they pay, they want to have women.
Dayane successfully raised money for the funeral, and at the age of 18 she had her first child. For the past 16 years, like many women in Itaituba, she has periodically returned to the mines to work as a cook, washerwoman, barmaid and sex worker.
She now has a family of seven.
“I’m not going to say that all the women in the city do this, but a fair share of them do sex work. So it’s kind of normal. We don’t really care,” says Natalia Cavalcante, who became a sex worker in a remote mining settlement at the age of 24. Four years later, after marrying the bar’s owner, she became a brothel madam – a job she was only offered until recently, to take care of her nieces in the city.
Life is tough in rainforest mining villages – most consist of just a dirt track, saloon bars and a church. But the miners themselves live in huts made of wood and canvas, surrounded by snakes and jaguars and in complete darkness after the generator is switched off. Women who work as cooks have to live in these camps with men.
Miners appear in the village whenever they find gold and have money to spend, Natalia adds. Sometimes women say they have to be persuaded to shower before sex.
Running a brothel is illegal under Brazilian law, but Natalia says she took no commission, hired bar staff and rented out rooms.
Young women would approach her asking for work, and she would sometimes pay for the seven-hour journey from Itaituba.
Asked if she had doubts about involving other women at work, she replied: “Sometimes I think: ‘I’ve been through it and I know it’s not good.’ But then I think: ‘A girl has a family, sometimes she has a child or two.'”
Even before marriage, Natalia had earned a lot of money.
She now has her own house in Itaituba, a motorbike and a substantial amount of gold that she sometimes received as payment for sex, two or three grams at a time. Her goal is to study, become a lawyer or an architect.
She says some women in Itaituba, nicknamed Gold Nugget City, are involved in business with the money they earn.
But venturing as a woman into violent and illegal mining settlements is a big risk.
While the environmental damage of mines is well known, the human cost – which the UN says includes violence, sexual exploitation and trafficking – is often underreported.
A precious metals trader told the BBC that illegal gold from these mines is often relabelled as gold by licensed mining cooperatives before being exported and turned into jewelery and components for mobile phones or other electronic items.
The three biggest consumers of Brazilian gold are Canada, Switzerland and the UK. According to the Instituto Escolhas think tank, more than 90% of all exports to Europe are from areas where illegal mining occurs.
Killing of women in mining villages is not unknown. The body of Raiele Santos, 26, was found last year in a room where she lived near the Cuiu-Cuiu gold mine, an 11-hour drive from Itaituba.
Her older sister, Rylane, says a man has offered her money for sex, and she refuses, so he finds her and beats her up.
“A lot of women die on a daily basis, a lot of women,” Rylane says.
“I was born in the mines, I grew up in the mines, and now I fear living in the mines.”
A man has been arrested in connection with Riley’s murder, but has not yet been charged. He denies all the allegations against him.
The land covered by Brazil’s illegal gold mines is set to double in 10 years to 220,000 hectares by 2023 – bigger than Greater London. No one knows how many women work in this area, how many illegal miners there are. The Brazilian government says the latter figure could range from 80,000 to 800,000.
Under President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, the government has taken steps to shut down illegal mines and stop dealers from buying the gold they produce, but high gold prices are prompting many men to try their luck.
Dayane wants to stop working in the mining areas because the dangers and hardships take a toll on her body, but she hopes for her last trip. She realized that her goal was to earn enough in two or three months to open a snack bar upon her return.
When she is alone, walking in the woods, she worries about her children, she says.
“I keep trying until I can’t anymore,” he says. “Because I hope that one day, my children will say: ‘My mum worked so hard. What she went through for us, and she never gave up.
Additional reporting by Mariana Schreiber, BBC Brazil
You can watch BBC 100 Women documentary, Sex for GoldOn BBC iPlayer from Saturday 7 December
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