Bordels Mobiles de Campagne

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Bordels Mobiles de Campagne or Bordel Militaire de Campagne (both abbreviated to BMC) is a French term for a mobile brothel used to supply prostitution services to French soldiers facing combat in areas where brothels were unusual, such as at the front line or in isolated garrisons during the First World War, Second World War^[1] and First Indochina War.^[2]

These mobile brothels were in some cases officially organized by the army. They consisted of large trailer trucks in which up to ten women would work.^[3] The first references to these BMC's were in the First World War, and they are noted particularly in the Indochina War and the Algerian War. In the former, BMC's were known to have a significant role in the spread of sexually transmitted diseases^[3] and were an avenue of attack by female Viet Minh sympathizers.^[4] There was a vast BMC in Saigon known as 'the park of the buffaloes', and in January 1954, a BMC containing Vietnamese and Algerian prostitutes^[5] was flown to Dien Bien Phu.^[2] Here, the prostitutes became nurses for the French garrison during the siege, though they were sent for 're-education' by the Viet Minh after the French Garrison fell.^[5]

[edit] Notes

^ World Association of International Studies article retrieved on March 10, 2007
^ ^a ^b The Last Valley Martin Windrow, 2004
^ ^a ^b The International Encyclopaedia of Sexuality: Vietnam, retrieved on March 10, 2007
^ Vietnam, a war lost and won, Nigel Cawthorne
^ ^a ^b IHT article, retrieved on March 10, 2007