Police chiefs in Switzerland are planning to build a series of drive-in sex-boxes to enable prostitutes to conduct their business with punters without disturbing the neighbourhood.

The idea - imported from German cities like Essen and Cologne - is being proposed by Zurich police chief Daniel Leupi as a way to let prostitutes work in a more discrete way.

The idea comes after thousands of complaints by householders whose homes overlook the thriving red light district in Zurich.

Police spokesman Reto Casanova (his actual name) said: We can't get rid of prostitution, so have to learn how to control it.

It's an unusual campaign pledge: a strip club in every town. That, however, is what Adriely Fatal, a stripper and erotic actress from north-eastern Brazil, is promising voters as she hits the campaign trail in search of a place in parliament.

With general elections taking place in October, four adult entertainers are preparing to battle it out for a seat in Ceara state's local assembly, aiming to rock the political establishment by forming a powerful sex lobby within government.

Leading Ceara's campanha erσtica is 23-year-old Fatal, who also promises to focus on hospitals and education and is campaigning outside the local football stadium, where she dances on an open-backed truck dressed in skin-tight shorts.

Fatal claims that the latest opinion polls show she already has around 10,000 votes in the bag. If she can increase that to 12,000, her campaign manager, who was inspired by the Hungarian porn star La Cicciolina, elected to Italy's parliament in 1987, believes Fatal will soon become Fatal MP.

It seems there is little interest in investing in pornography these days in Spain, and X-rated cinemas have closed down, as viewers now only have to access the internet to find a wide variety of films, often for free and in the comfort of their own living rooms.

Several decades ago, the porn industry in Spain was booming, but over the years, it has been on the decline, mainly due to the internet and illegal downloading.

In 1999, according to statistics from SGAE, seven out of every 1,000 cinema-goers watched adult films and takings were close to four million euros. Ten years later, these figures have fallen to 1 in every 1,000 and takings of just 903,000 euros.

The Spanish pornography industry complains that if there was more control on illegal internet downloading, they may once again be able to make money out of porn, as well as keeping control on films to keep them within the boundaries of the law.

A Bahraini woman, who owns what is believed to be the first sex shop in the region, fears she could run out of business following a new government ban on sex toys.

Khadija Ahmed is now considering leaving the country: There isn't a reasonable cause for banning the products because it's not immoral and they don't go against our religion, she said.

I pay a lot of money to ship my products to Bahrain and as soon as they enter the country, Customs officials confiscate them or force me to send them back - so I have to pay again to ship them here again, she said.

I have lost thousands of dinars and my business is suffering as a result, despite having a large customer base who call me on a daily basis asking for more products.

They tell me that my products have helped their marriages and the success of my store proves that there is a demand for such products among married Bahrainis. My products aren't illegal. They are widely available in Bahrain's markets, but the only difference is that I collected them under one roof.

The woman who runs the Khadija Fashion House in Jidali, is now planning to appeal to the highest authorities to reverse the ban. She is planning to write to His Royal Highness Prime Minister Prince Khalifa bin Salman Al Khalifa in the hope that he will intervene.

Some female Asian tourists have been flocking to massage parlors in Cebu City that offer a different kind of service called yoni, according to Rene Joseph Bullecer of Aids Free Philippines.

Although it is not yet as popular as the male equivalent, lingam, Bullecer said Asian tourists, mostly Koreans, avail the services of yoni or massage of the female genitals.

This is what the Asian (tourists) have been looking for. Filipino men touch their private parts, he said. These young women are looking for something. They don't want women to do the massage. They want men. Kasagaran Asian costumers ang hilig ana (Asian customers usually avail of that).

Yoni is the Sanskrit word for the female sex organ and is loosely translated as sacred space or Sacred Temple, according to the www.whitelotuseast.com. According to the website, the massage was a form of safe sex and was used to assist women to break through sexual blocks or trauma.

Yoni, as well as lingam, is being offered in at least five massage parlors and spas in uptown Cebu City, said Bullecer. At least 25% of the massage parlors in Cebu offer lingam. He said he didn't have the exact number of massage parlors that offered yoni.

Free porn available on the internet is hitting erotic shopping empire Beate Uhse where it hurts – in the bottom line.

The Flensburg-based German business posted a loss for the first half of the year, with pre-tax losses of €6.1 million – after a profit of €686,000 in the same period of 2009.

Named after its founder, Beate Uhse became a huge player in the erotic industry in Germany and abroad, but is now trying to alter direction towards more lifestyle products, a change which is taking longer than anticipated, the company said on Friday.

The previously strong DVD sector has shrunk dramatically in the face of competing free sex films available on the internet.

New products such as bedclothes and towels have been introduced as part of the new concept, while the mail-order business has been split into soft and hard sections, although this has not helped performance.

Arch over Jomtien's main road. I wonder how this got council approval?

Thailand is known for its anything-goes sex industry, and stag parties are simple to organize and host. But what about a hen party, that final blowout before a women commits herself to the institution of marriage?

In Thailand, there are no Chippendales dancers or legitimate businesses you can just call up and order male strippers from. Everything is behind a veil of secrecy, therefore an investigation was needed. But the biggest question was where to start.

First of all, it's incredibly difficult to get past the faηade of Thai conservatism. Most of the newlyweds I spoke to said the hen parties their friends held for them were quiet little outings to the beach. Nothing like those drunken stripper-filled nights out on the town many women in the West love to hold for their friends.

So there I was, without a lead. This story seemed to be headed nowhere fast. Until a gay friend tells me there is a beach in Jomtien outside of Pattaya about an hour and a half away from Bangkok where women can hire male strippers to dance at their chosen venue. For Western men, head to the beach

Pattaya is a seaside resort renowned for its sin, a prostitution and mafia-filled den of inequity that would make the perfect backdrop to a bad Hollywood movie, possessed by a foulness so evil that Darth Vader would feel intimidated here. [Get on down there]

We soon find what we are looking for. Sure enough there are Eastern European-looking men loitering around the front of bars. Prices for the men of course vary, but they are willing to dance -- illegally, we might add, so hire at your own risk as I'm pretty sure they don't have work permits -- for either men or women.

The lesson I quickly learn in all this is that Bangkok's gay community is the best place to head if you want to plan a wild bachelorette party.

As soon as I'm back in the city, another gay friend calls to say he heard about my assignment and tells me to tag along to a hen party he is hosting for one of his female friends. Calls are made, a tux is dry-cleaned and a few days later I find myself face to face with the dangling scrotum. 'Take it off! Take it off!'

The pretense of the party is a small gathering of friends, together for a wine-tasting course. What the guests don't know is that the waiters are actually strippers -- and do the job quite well, one might add.

If you want to hold a hen's party with strippers your best bet is to hire them from a gay bar and hold the party at a private venue. Or, if you don't mind being surrounded by men, just take your crowd to the gay bar.

We advise against checking out Bangkok's lady-toy bars, which offer male escorts for hire. Not only is prostitution illegal in Thailand, but, as a recent Bangkok Post article explains, customers can be intimidated by the waiters and security staff and hassled to buy high-priced drinks for themselves and their dates. The scene can also get pretty shady, with reports that the men for hire often expose their genitals -- some wearing a condom -- whether on the stage or approaching female customers at a table. That's probably a bit more full on than most ladies want from a harmless hen's night out with the girls.

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Sex workers in Vila Mimosa, Rio's red light district fear they may be forced out as the city revamps for 2014 Wortld Cup and 2016 Olympics.

Rio's business association, Firjan, estimates that some R$250bn (£89bn) in public and private money will be invested in the city over the coming six years.

While most are celebrating the city's regeneration, Vila Mimosa's prostitutes and their employers are growing increasingly nervous that the city's makeover may see them driven out by mooted plans to bulldoze the area and replace it with a platform for a high-speed rail-link between Rio and Brazil's economic capital Sao Paulo.

Vila Mimosa is a place where money talks. The residents' association claims the red-light district, which is open around the clock, receives around 4,000 guests each day. The local commerce as a whole is said to generate around R$1m each month.

For those who run the local clubs – sweaty bars with names such as Queen 46 and Men's 44 – it is a lucrative business. The former owner of one club said bar managers could draw an annual salary of up to £35,000 from their pontos or points – a sizeable wage in a country where the minimum monthly wage is around £185.

Life is less kind to the women who work here, earning as little as £10 per program, many of them trying to pay college fees or support their families.

Prostitution is not a crime in Brazil and for tens of thousands impoverished women – from the wealthy south-eastern metropolises to the isolated frontier towns of the Amazon – it represents a viable if often dangerous means of survival. A recent UN report suggested there could be close to 20,000 South American prostitutes working in Europe.

Not all of the women in Vila Mimosa oppose the move. I'd go happily. Have you seen it in there? said Monique, the 64-year-old manager of one of the area's houses. She pointed out onto Rua Sotero dos Reis, where more than 70 brothels cram into squalid alleyways, buzzing with gyrating bodies. It's horrible. It stinks and the access [for cars] is bad. Maybe the next place will be better.

The proliferation of more convenient saunas in Rio's downtown business centre had hit the area hard, she claimed. In the olden days it would be packed now with lawyers, oil executives, all sorts, she said, looking around at her half empty bar: Now just look at this place.

Men will go anywhere [for sex], said a 21-year-old prostitute, who works under the name Julia: Men are addicts – this is an addiction.

Canada has upped the ante for running a brothel with the possibility of an additional charge: being a member of a criminal gang.

The federal government put through several regulatory changes to the Criminal Code in the middle of July. Justice Minister Rob Nicholson announced the changes on Wednesday.

The definition of a criminal organization is three or more people engaged in committing serious offences for profit. Thanks to the cabinet fiat, serious offences includes close to a dozen new crimes. While most of the regulatory changes announced to the Criminal Code affect gambling, betting or drug trafficking, the government also included keeping a common bawdyhouse.

NDP MP Libby Davies says it's outrageous that the Conservative government has quietly enacted new organized crime regulations — which include making bawdyhouse offences a serious crime — while Parliament is on summer break.

Christine Bruckert, a professor of criminology at the University of Ottawa who has studied sex work, says the change in regulation could affect massage parlours, brothels, dungeons, bathhouses — even swingers' clubs. Bruckert calls the changes a slippage in the discourse around trafficking, where anxiety about women being trapped by international pimps is now being applied to unrelated situations.

The Calcutta high court is set to hear an interesting petition on the Immoral Traffic Prevention Act (ITPA), 1956.

The petition has been filed by Durbar Mahila Samanwaya Committee (DMSC), an umbrella association of Kolkata-based sex workers.

The association wants changes since it believes this law violates the fundamental rights of citizens. It also wants clients of sex workers to be exempted from criminal prosecution.

Section 4 is full of contradictions, noted criminal and human rights lawyer K Gupta said. Under this section, those dependent (parents, husband, adult children) on the income of sex workers can be prosecuted if they are aware that the money has been earned through prostitution, Gupta said. However, the beneficiary cannot be prosecuted if h/she is unaware of the source of income. But it is quite difficult to establish this distinction and in most cases law-enforcement agencies take advantage of this.

Besides, this section is self-discriminatory, or contrary to other laws that make it mandatory for a son or daughter to look after their dependent parents. In a way, this section discourages a sex worker from spending her money to look after her ailing parents or educating her adult son or daughter. Under section 4, people benefiting from the income of sex worker can be sentenced to a maximum of two years in prison, Gupta said.

Similarly, another self-contradictory clause in ITPA is the one that makes it a criminal offence to hire the services of a sex worker. Prostitution has not been defined as a criminal offence in our law. If the service is not illegal, then how can clients be criminals? We hope this historical petition will try to seek answers to all such questions, the lawyer said.

Sex workers at a well-known brothel in the Peruvian port of Callao mounted a protest against what they decry as unfair competition from foreign colleagues.

Some 300 prostitutes wrapped in sheets from the El Trocadero bordello demonstrated in protest against the presence of foreign women.

Prostitution is legal in Peru for adult women, but they must register with municipal governments and carry health certificates, while brothels require licenses.

A representative of the protesters calling herself Bella told RPP radio that they have filed a complaint with immigration authorities against another nearby brothel because they have foreigners there without their papers in order and with no license to work here.

An hour costs 120 sols ($42), but for them (the foreign prostitutes) no; since they're desperate to make some money, they only charge 80 sols ($28) per hour.

The Cebu City Council will draft an ordinance regulating spa and massage parlors that offer lingam massage to their clients, Vice Mayor Augustus Young said.

Young said the council committees on health and tourism will draft the guidelines to ensure that lingam massage won't lead to prostitution. Young said restrictions will include age limits and licensing of attendants.

He said he talked with some doctors who confirmed that lingam massage is recommended for those with prostate cancer.

I didn't hear any complaints that lingam was harmful. That's why you have to look at both sides, But let's impose a sin tax on it. We welcome lingam but with the condition that it won't violate public morals, he said.

But Mayor Michael Rama said he had to wait for the City Anti-Indecency Board (CAIB) recommendation on the issue.

City Treasurer Ofelia Oliva said a recent inspection of nine outlets offering lingam services showed that three of them offered extra services to customers.

In a Provincial Board session, the owner of the Authentic Lingam Massage Venture in barangay Mabolo, Cebu City insisted that they were not engaged in prostitution. Owner Honey Yoo told board members that the massage involved only the areas between the anus and the perinium, and not the male genitals. Ejaculation is just incidental, she said.

The Spa and Wellness Association of Cebu clarified to the board that their members don't offer lingam massage. Association president Johnnie Lim said they would continue to bar lingam massage from their outlets.

A crackdown on China's fast-growing sex industry has prompted a backlash, with sex workers demonstrating for the legalisation of prostitution and an outcry about the treatment of women suspects.

The protest in Wuhan is thought to have been the first of its kind in the country. The small group of women asked onlookers to sign a petition calling for an end to discrimination against sex workers and the scrapping of anti-prostitution laws.

Our society has many problems that are neglected by the public and prostitution is one of them, Ye Haiyan, the activist and sex worker at the forefront of last week's demonstration. She said police had detained her for a few days for her part in the protest.

Prostitution is widespread and blatant in China, despite frequent crackdowns. Many hotels, hairdressers, massage parlours and karaoke bars make little effort to disguise illicit activity. The World Health Organisation has estimated the country has 4 million sex workers, but academics have suggested the figure is higher.

In May, state media said police had arrested 1,100 suspects from high-end establishments in Beijing alone. But pink-lit hairdressers and massage facilities appear to be operating unhindered in the capital and elsewhere.

Ye, who tweets and blogs under the name Hooligan Sparrow, said the police campaign was harming the health of workers. She launched the Chinese Women's Rights Workshop, distributing condoms and Aids-prevention pamphlets to brothels in Wuhan. But she said that sex workers were now reluctant to use condoms for fear they would be used as evidence of prostitution. On her website she said she also decided to speak out after seeing women publicly humiliated following police raids.

Zheng Huang, of Shanghai Leyi – an NGO supporting male sex workers – said the crackdown was the most significant for at least a decade. He believed prostitutes have become more vulnerable because they are moving around to avoid police. He said: Sex workers just need to regain the rights they are supposed to have rather than asking for more rights. For example, many prostitutes do not dare to call the police when they get robbed, because they are afraid of being arrested for their job.