Prostitution in Eritrea is legal and regulated. Official figures state there are around 2,000 prostitutes in the country, who are not allowed to operate near schools, hospitals, and churches. According to the 2009 Human Rights Reports, security forces occasionally follow women engaged in prostitution and arrest those who had spent the night with a foreigner. Some women enter prostitution due to poverty. Prostitutes are known locally as "shermuta" in Arabic, or "mnzerma" and "me'amn" in Tigrinya. History There had been courtesans and concubines in the Habesha culture for centuries. After the colonization by Italy in 1880 there was an increase in forced prostitution by Italian soldiers, the Italian population was estimated at 8000 military and civilian people, with the advent of fascism during the Second Italo-Ethiopian War in 1935 the increased prostitution for requests for sexual labor from Italian military authorities with an increase in sexual abuse and rape of women and children with the increase in pedophile. Prostitution was encouraged with the advent of Italian racial laws by the authorities and discouraged mixed marriages (in many cases forced marriages) between Italians and locals. Brothels were opened and local women were recruited, if necessary forcibly with coercion, to work in them. These brothels were subsidized by the authorities. Women also came from rural areas of Eritrea forcibly emigrated the vast majority were girls aged 12 and over. In major cities like Assab, Asmara and Massawa, prostitution was common in bars in the "native neighborhoods". [5] This phenomenon continued much less during the World War II with the war lost in 41 it could no longer be resorted to by force of arms. Following the federation with Ethiopia in 1950, the Ethiopian troops stationed in Eritrea, and the American troops at Kagnew Station continued the demand for prostitution. Prostitution increased during the 1970s with the build-up of the Ethiopian garrisons in the area. In the 1980s there were a hundred prostitutes between Assab, Asmara and Massawa. Many worked in bars owned by successful prostitutes. During the Eritrean War of Independence, Eritrean girls in occupied territories we required to sign up to join the army at 16. There is evidence many were used as prostitutes by the soldiers. At time of liberation by the Eritrean People's Liberation Front and independence, there were 4,000 prostitutes in the country, and 2,000 Ethiopian women were deported in an attempt to curtail prostitution. With the spread