I used the word “pimp” loosely.

IMO, all the bar/pension owners and managers in CR are pimps, even though the women are technically freelancers rather than employees. They are because they in effect hire and fire, accepting some while dismissing others, schedule hours, set fees, and act as go-betweens for the exchange of money.

In my further opinion, the owners and managers of some bars popular with the sex tourists are also pimps. They too restrict entry of some women, often have an approved list of the women permitted in, and periodically indirectly compensate the women they want by offering them free meals and this or that. The control the exercise over the women is less than in the bar/pensions, but it is still control and thus pimping.

However, In CR pimping usually has to be pretty extreme to justify the legal charge, and I’m not sure where that line is crossed. Locking the women in would qualify though.

On one hand, and perhaps with “digusted,” there are lots of places similar to this in CR, which aren’t instances of sex slavery. In them the women sometimes choose to spend the night in the rooms, usually because they live some distance away from work and only work a few days a week, and they probably lock their doors while appreciating the security guard that the owner pays to protect them. While anything is possible, I find it hard to believe that many Ticas are sex slaves. Then too, when so many women are willing to work in bar/brothels for very little money, I find it hard to believe that many owners would resort to slavery when it’s cheaper not to.

On the other hand, the issue of transporting Dominicanas does raise suspicions. Sometimes when foreigners have neither the money nor the papers to come to CR, arrangements are made (and passports withheld) by someone who wants to profit from the foreigners’ labor. These arrangements probably range from the fairly innocuous high-interest loan to be paid via labor to false promises eventuating in slavery, with something like indentured servitude in between. It’s probably easy for pimps to abuse their power in these situations, and this may be what was going on here–though I still wonder why anyone would undertake this kind of expensive risk when so many women are willing to work in these places without explicit coercion.