CARTAGENA, Colombia — Rubbing eyes drowsy from lack of sleep and still smudged with the previous night’s mascara, the employees of the Angeles Bar Club trooped one by one on Tuesday afternoon into a tiny bedroom with stickers of Tinker Bell and Sleeping Beauty pasted on the mauve walls to sit down on a bed with a lime green comforter and be tested for sexually transmitted diseases.

It is a weekly routine at brothels across Cartagena, whose thriving and legal prostitution business, much of it oriented toward foreign tourists, has become the focus of international attention since a group of American Secret Service agents became embroiled in scandal over allegations of taking prostitutes to their hotel rooms.

“All they talk about is the dark side of prostitution,” said the club’s owner, who goes by the name Camila, referring to news media reports of Cartagena’s rambunctious nightlife scene. She leafed through a stack of folders containing the test results of her 22 employees. The brothel insists that all customers use condoms and, according to a public health official who has worked with the club, none of its prostitutes have been found to be infected in three years of testing.

“This is for the benefit of the clients and for the benefit of the girls,” said Camila, who asked that her real name not be used because some people do not know she runs a brothel. “They have families they are sending money to, children they want to see grow up.”