Sex Work in Spain

Traditionally perceived as relatively marginal, prostitution is increasingly seen as normal, with ever younger men preferring to pay for sex rather than taking the trouble of trying to pick up girls.

Prostitution is again making headlines after the daily newspaper El Pais published pictures of prostitutes and their clients having sex on the street at night in a Barcelona tourist neighbourhood.

Barcelona had become increasingly lax in applying a 2006 municipal ordinance which stipulated fines of up to 750 euros (1,050 dollars) for sex workers or their clients, critics complain.

Associations representing local residents or the prostitutes themselves urged a legalization of the trade, describing it as the only way to guarantee prostitutes adequate working conditions. The city, however, only deployed more police to chase the sex workers off the streets in the Raval neighbourhood.

The influx of immigrants has led to the growth of prostitution in Spain, where up to 300,000 women are estimated to be selling sex in flats, hostels, streets, parks or at around 2,500 'clubs' functioning as brothels. Around 90% of the sex workers are migrants from countries such as Brazil, Colombia, Nigeria, Romania or Russia.

Nearly 30% of Spanish men admit to having bought sex, according to the National Statistics Institute. The abundant offer of cheap women with a variety of exotic looks has made many young men regard prostitution as a normal leisure activity, with the average age of the clients dropping to around 30years, El Pais quoted psychologists and other researchers as saying. The growth of prostitution reflects a culture of immediacy, the will to get casual sex fast and without effort, the daily wrote.

Police Operation

7th September 2009. Based on article from laht.com

One hundred police officers took part Saturday in an anti-prostitution operation in downtown Barcelona that ended with 16 arrests along the landmark thoroughfare of Las Ramblas in the Catalan capital.

Besides the 16 people arrested, another 78 were identified. Those taken into custody were two Nigerian prostitutes, two Brazilian transvestites and another 12 foreign citizens who are in Spain illegally, police officials said.

Taking part in the operation were agents of Spain's National Police, the regional Catalan police and the Barcelona municipal force. This police macro-operation is the first in which the three police forces have worked together and comes after a fierce controversy sparked by the publication at the beginning of this week of prostitutes photographed having sex in the middle of downtown Barcelona.

The interior ministry of the regional government of Catalonia promised to maintain until the end of autumn the police reinforcements that in recent days have succeeded in driving prostitutes out of Las Ramblas, one of the best-known areas.

Update: Legally Moved off the Street

14th September 2009. Based on article from spanishnews.es

After days of heavy dispute both amongst Barcelona's citizens, its politicians as well as Spanish and international media, the verdict appears to be that Barcelona's prostitutes will soon be able to legally practice their profession in commercial premises and apartments.

The big debate was stirred up last week, after El Pais published photos of tourists having sex with prostitutes in the streets of Barcelona and around the famous La Boqueria market at night. The photos even led Spanish prime minister, Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero to join the discussion, demanding Barcelona to clear out its prostitutes.

The councilor of Citutat Vella, Itziar González, expressed the city council's intention of modifying the urban plan to grant licenses of bars with privées in order to allow sexual practices. The legal changes would be finalized this month and come into effect towards the beginning of 2010. The government hopes to rid Barcelona's streets of prostitution with the new measure.

The measure has been very well received by prostitutes, business owners as well as neighbourhood associations, nevertheless the opposition lead by CiU party leader Xavier Trias, sees the measure as an easy way out and cowardly as well as a step back from the regeneration of the area.

A women's nutter group has welcomed a decision by Spain's parliament to reject a move that would have made prostitution legal.

Parliament on Tuesday voted 329-5 against a proposal to recognize prostitution as a profession.

The Federation of Progressive Women welcomed the vote, describing prostitution as a form of violence and slavery which was being supported and promoted by many people.

The Catalan republican party ERC, which tabled the proposal, said it would prefer prostitution not to exist, but that it was better to grant prostitutes legal rights than to leave them at the mercy of pimps.

Parliament also rejected calls for a ban on newspaper ads on prostitution, saying it was preferable for the media voluntarily to stop advertising the sex trade.

A large majority of people in Spain back a proposal that would make prostitution a regular occupation, according to a poll by Instituto Noxa published in La Vanguardia. 76% of respondents support regularizing prostitution, while 17% oppose it.

While prostitution in Spain is not illegal, owning or running a brothel has been illegal since 1956.

The Republican Left of Catalonia (ERC)—a Catalan nationalist party—is proposing that prostitution be regularized across Spain, in order to offer protection to voluntary sex workers and combat illicit human trafficking organizations. The ERC has also put forward a bill that would ban all ads selling prostitution in print publications. ERC lawmaker Joan Tardà has called the ads disgusting and said that they denigrate women.

Last month, Tardà declared: Regulating is the only way to guarantee social and labour rights to the people that practice it [prostitution], bring them back from the fringes....It will also make it easier to track crime associated with it.

With a new by-law which comes into force next month, Granada becomes the first town in Andalucía to introduce fines for street prostitution.

Ondara on the Costa Blanca has now followed their example and will be voting at a council meeting next week on its own by-law with fines for anyone who offers, solicits, negotiates or accepts, directly or indirectly, sexual services on the public way.

The fines range from 80 up to 500 €, but sexual relations taking place in the street will be considered a very serious offence and could be fined by as much as 2,000 €.

The local Town Hall told El Mundo newspaper that the measure will only be applied to those who re-offend knowing that the ban is in place, adding that the municipal social services department is on hand to help and advise any prostitutes who work locally who want to give up their profession.

Update: In Force in Granada

11th November 2009. See article from etaiwannews.com

The southern Spanish city of Granada has started imposing fines on street prostitutes and their clients in a rare crackdown on a profession that lies in legal limbo.

City councilor Eduardo Moral says the new municipal order that went into effect Tuesday imposes fines of up to $4,500 for soliciting or offering sex within 200 meters (660 feet) of a school, residential area, shopping center or business complex.

Outside that limit, the fine can be as much as $1,100.

The government of Marbella gave green light to a new regulation, which among other things, would prohibit the offering and demand of sexual services in the the street, i.e. prostitution.

The new regulation claims to be in response to neighbourhood requests.

The Valencian Federation of Municipalities and Provinces has introduced a law making sex on the street punishable by a fine of 3,000 euros. The new framework also outlaws prostitution, begging and any other activity that disturbs the tranquillity of neighbours. Also included for the first time is legislation that aims to control the behaviour of club doormen.

The law, which will apply everywhere within the City of Valencia, provides for penalties of up to 3,000 euros for having sex in a car within the city or 400 euros for people who buy pirated DVDs and CDs in the street.

The legislation has been unanimously approved by the council representatives.

The law seeks to end prostitution in the street and is aimed equally at prostitutes and their clients. For a first offence clients and prostitutes face penalties of between 1,500 and 3,000 euros. If sex workers continue to offend they will suffer imprisonment. The document warns that any person who has sexual intercourse in a vehicle in the street will also be fined up to 3,000 euros.

The Spanish government has put itself on collision course with the national press with the announcement that it wants to ban adverts offering sexual services from their classified sections.

The adverts, which fill at least a page in most of Spain's dailies, are worth €40m (£34m) a year to the newspaper industry.

President José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero made the announcement during this week's state of the nation speech, claiming it was part of a strategy to fight the people trafficking and sexual exploitation: As long as these advertisements exist, they contribute to the idea of this activity as normal.

If the ads are banned, newspapers will want to be compensated and, worryingly for Zapatero, El País, a staunch supporter of his socialist party, is the paper that earns the most from this form of advertising. With its left-liberal sensibilities and readership profile, El País is the Spanish paper that most resembles the Guardian, and yet it earns €5m a year from advertising prostitution.

Yolanda Besteiro of the 'Progressive' Women's Federation was scathing about what she regards as the newspaper's hypocrisy: No media outlet can proclaim itself a defender of human rights when it publishes this kind of advertising, which makes them directly complicit in this type of slavery.

The most openly religious daily, ABC, also runs the ads. El Publíco is the only national that does not run them as a matter of policy. Spain is the only European country where the quality press carries adverts for sex. Prostitution is big business in Spain, worth an estimated €18bn a year.

The Spanish journalists' federation FAPE (Federación de Asociaciones de Periodistas de España) has backed a call by parliament for the media to stop carrying advertisements for prostitution.

Parliament has now adopted a proposal urging Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero's government to take action against the practice within four months.

Spain was about the only country where serious newspapers published advertisements announcing the services of prostitutes, Socialist legislator Carmen Monton said.

The conservative opposition also criticized the hypocrisy of media writing critically about prostitution - which is semi-legal in Spain - and nevertheless publishing sex ads.

The FAPE considered the parliamentary proposal insufficient, because it only called on the government to press the media for a voluntary code to regulate themselves. The journalists' federation urged the government to state-funded advertising from any media obtaining a part of their financing from the exploitation of women.

The Paradise night club, touted as the largest brothel in Europe, has opened for business after a Spanish town failed to stop it in the courts.

Police patrolled the roads outside the Spanish town of La Jonquera and 15 security guards kept watch as the opening night crowd filtered in on Thursday.

I give the girls breakfast, lunch and dinner and they get to keep whatever they make. Do you call that exploitation? a Paradise manager told reporters as a group of middle-aged French men left their cars for the club, which looks like a disco that overdosed on neon. The club, which measures 2,700 square metres and boasts 80 rooms with rates of €120 (£107) per hour, is one of 11 so-called macro-brothels in this Catalan region of Gerona, near the Costa Brava.

Roughly 1,800 prostitutes reportedly sell their services there [Other reports suggest a more believable 180]. And many local restaurant owners and other residents are pleased with the business they attract. Except for a handful of local priests, few Spaniards have attempted to throw cold water on this industry.

But the mayor of La Jonquera, Jordi Cabezas, refused to give the club an operating licence, claiming that a police report warned the brothel could cause security and public order problems. The club owner, identified as Jose Moreno in the Spanish press, had been arrested in September, along with 40 other people, in connection with an alleged sex trade trafficking ring. He was charged and released pending trial.

Moreno has denied involvement with trafficking rings. I run three places. Who would think that I would get involved in something like that? It doesn't make sense, he told El Pais newspaper. Moreno took the town to court and won. In February, the Supreme Court of Catalonia ruled that police speculation was not sufficient grounds to dampen the libido of paying customers. The ruling was not surprising in Spain, a traditionally Catholic country that has long tolerated prostitution.

Moreno, denies he is exploiting women: They are adults, they know what they are here for, and that's all that I ask of them.

The women refused to comment to the horde of reporters at the opening. We come to Spain for sex, said one of the men: In France, this is illegal. The girls are very pretty, another man said with a nervous giggle.

Sex workers on the street outside a town northern Spain have been ordered to wear reflective vests supposedly to make them visible to passing traffic and reduce the risk of accidents.

Women touting for customers on a rural highway outside Els Alamus near Lleida in Catalonia have been told to don the yellow fluorescent bibs or pay fines of 40 euros (£36) under road traffic laws.

Police claim the sex workers on the LL-11 road are not being specifically targeted because of what they do but because they posed a danger to drivers.

The prostitutes are in breach of 2004 law which states pedestrians on major highways and hard shoulders must wear the high visibility garments.

The move follows recent legislation introduced by Els Alamus town hall to ban prostitutes from offering sex for sale in public urban areas. The mayor Josep Maria Bea has been accused of mounting a campaign to drive the sex workers out of the area.

Prostitution is so popular (and socially accepted) in Spain that a United Nations study reports that 39 per cent of all Spanish men have used a prostitute's services at least once. A Spanish Health Ministry survey in 2009 put the percentage of one-time prostitute users at 32 per cent: lower than the UN figure, perhaps, but far higher than the 14 per cent in liberal-minded Holland, or in Britain, where the figure is reported to oscillate between 5 and 10 per cent. And that was just those men willing to admit it.

To meet this vast demand, an estimated 300,000 prostitutes are working in Spain – everywhere from clubs in town centres to industrial estates, to lonely country roads to roadside bars, the last often recognisable by gigantic neon signs of champagne bottles or shapely females, flashing away in the darkness. And recently, on the French border, Club Paradise opened with 180 sex workers, making it the biggest brothel in Europe.

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Sex workers in Malaga have been given an area where they can ply their trade without police interference. The plot of land, which is in the same area of the Guadalhorce Industrial Estate in Malaga where they currently work, does not breach municipal regulations. Malaga City Hall is improving the plot by fixing up access routes and installing bins, so everything points to a definitive solution for the city's working girls.

A local law passed six months ago made it illegal for them to carry out their activities within 200 metres from schools, homes or businesses. In the months following the new laws, many prostitutes complained they were being persecuted by police and given no alternatives.

Malaga City hall has also approved a programme to improve the conditions of women working in the sex trade, with a budget of EUR350,000.

Meanwhile, on the nearby Azucarera Industrial Estate, an establishment advertised as the Sala Blue Hotel, which according to neighbours is a brothel, was prevented from opening by police. Thirty women were in the premises at the time. It planned to open with porn actress Maria Lapiedra as the star of the inauguration. The reason cited for the closure was a minor planning issue.

A quarter of Spanish men has used the services of prostitutes, according to a government report.

Spaniards aged between 35 and 55 are the principal clients for Europe's sex industry, ahead of Switzerland (19%), Austria (15%), the Netherlands (14%) and Sweden (13%).

The statistics were quoted in a guide on sexual exploitation compiled by APRAMP, a support group for prostitutes, and published by the ministry of Health, Social Policies and Equality.

Approximately 1,000,000 women currently worked as prostitutes in the European Union, said the group's president Rocio Nieto.

The city of Barcelona in Spain has said it would soon outlaw street prostitution, imposing fines on both prostitutes and their clients.

The city hall said the new rules were expected to come into force in May.

Prostitution is not illegal in Spain and a number of parties on the municipal council suggested a change in the law was needed rather than a municipal edict.

Currently street prostitution is only illegal in the city if it is carried out near schools or churches.

The sex workers of Barcelona organized a protest action against a ban on street prostitution in Barcelona.

The women paraded through the streets with colorful masks and posters expressing their discontent against the authorities of Barcelona.

More than 450 women chanted We are prostitutes and we have rights, EuroMag reports.

They reminded the authorities that they also are members of the society and have rights like the others, but their rights are being violated. The participants of demonstration ended at City Hall where they read their declaration.