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The Spatial Implications of the Control of Prostitution and Syphilis in Early Republican Istanbul
Abstract
The developing Republic’s program of raising healthy future generations was promoted as part of its pronatalist agenda when the Ministry of Health and Social Assistance was established in 1920 after the Parliament of Turkey was founded. The ministry initiated an agenda for public health projects including the institutionalization of medical services throughout the country, creating a state-trained medical staff, and carrying on campaigns against epidemic diseases such as malaria, syphilis, and trachoma. Treating and preventing syphilis became one of the priorities of the Turkish government because it was not just a threat to the nation’s mothers but also to unborn citizens as the disease was associated with birth defects and stillbirths. As a result, prostitution was identified as a public health risk and the state instituted a regulatory regime to determine appropriate sexual practices and places as well as mandating the medical examination of sex workers. The centralization of the control of prostitution and syphilis epidemic was introduced with the Public Health Law in 1930 and the Regulation for the Struggle against Prostitution and Venereal Diseases Spread by Prostitution in 1933. This led to spatial concentration and surveillance of prostitution in the urban environment within the context of fighting against syphilis. Even though prostitution took place in different neighborhoods in Istanbul (also in various forms such as street prostitution) Beyo?lu and Galata districts were the focuses of discussion for decades as the centers of the entertainment industry. This paper examines zoning practices both in the places of treatment (hospitals and doctors’ offices) and prostitution, and their spatial implications in daily life particularly in Abanoz, Ziba (Beyog?lu), and Zu?rafa streets (Galata) through the centralization of the regulation of sex trade and control of syphilis under the early Republican regime.
Discipline
Architecture & Urban Planning
Geographic Area
Turkey
Sub Area
19th-21st Centuries