IT doesn’t make for great conversation over the cornflakes – when a woman opens an official envelope sent to her home that reveals her man was caught with a prostitute.
Emblazoned on the letter inside are the words “consumption of in the street” — and this is followed by notice of a £3,000 penalty.
The sex trade in Barcelona is worth billions a yearCredit: Unknown
Sex workers wait in the street in Barcelona, Europe’s prostitution capitalCredit: News Group Newspapers Limited
A driver gets an eyeful from one of the thousands of sex workers in the cityCredit: News Group Newspapers Limited
Not an easy one to explain for the boyfriend or husband who has been up to no good.
But this tactic of shaming offenders in front of their partners is exactly what the authorities in a town near have used to successfully rid their neighbourhood of sex workers.
Such has been the deterrent that two mega-brothels just outside Gava have now shut up shop after punters ran scared.
But the story in Barcelona and the rest of is very different — the sex trade there is worth billions a year, the third highest of anywhere in the world aside from and
Footballers and businessmen are among the punters at more luxurious brothels but there are establishments and street girls to suit all budgets — and many customers are British tourists, stag parties or businessmen.
Pressure to curb the sex trade has been mounting, and in 2021 Spain’s government vowed to make prostitution illegal within two years. This has not happened.
‘Brits tip the most’
Prostitution, paying for sex and brothels remain legal in Spain, although soliciting in a public area is outlawed — but not enforced in the Catalan region of which Barcelona is capital.
Pimping and trafficking for sexual exploitation are also illegal.
But hookers are protected by Spain’s law on the right to body autonomy and, in response to the government plan to criminalise them, they formed a group called Stop Abolicion.
Sex worker Pamela, 40, told The Sun: “Nobody has the right to police my body. These are agreements between adults. If you make it illegal, you are telling me I don’t have rights over my own body. All that does is force me into worse working conditions.”
Fellow sex workers Lea, 36, and Valkiria, 45, backed her, citing Spain’s low wages and their family obligations as reasons for turning to sex work.
There are 300,000 ladies of the night in Spain and nowhere is business busier than in Barcelona, where women sell their bodies in brothels, on the street or in flats.
When we visited recently, four years after the planned government purge, it was there for all to see — and solicit.
At one deluxe vice den in the Sants-Montjuic neighbourhood, a working girl adjusted her hair in a mirror before tweaking her lingerie so her breasts were ready to lure in a client.
She would be one of 20 women shown to a rich man who would then pick a favourite and pay £114 to have his way for half an hour or £190 for an hour.
At nearby establishments, more girls checked mirrors before heading out to wait on streets — and similar high-end brothels abound across Barcelona, including in the district of Les Corts.
But in the city’s Raval area, flanked by tourism hotspot Las Ramblas, under-age girls in rank flats offer 15 minutes’ sex for £18 or oral for £4.
Barcelona is a centre for exploitation of all kinds of women.
Nuria Gonzalez Lopez, a human-rights lawyer
Similar goes on ten minutes’ drive away, near Barcelona football team’s . It is a grim and often terrifying life for the girls, many of them trafficked from , Latin America and and abused by pimps as well as then punters.
Nuria Gonzalez Lopez, a human-rights lawyer and prostitution abolitionist, told us: “The problem is, prostitution in the Raval area has turned Barcelona into a sexual tourism destination — and sexual tourism of all kinds.
“There is something here for every budget. In fact, if you go to online tourism forums, Barcelona comes up as a sexual tourism destination as it is cheap, accessible and any permissiveness is OK. Barcelona is a centre for exploitation of all kinds of women.”
It is also the case that British visitors are helping to fuel that trade — and they are not all on sunshine breaks or stag booze-ups, either.
Many are high-powered corporate types working away and playing away.
Services here start from as little as five euros for oral sex and go up to 20 euros for full sex.
Belen Camarasa
One English sex buyer, who declined to be named, said: “This is a bucket-list destination. The women are gorgeous and are willing to do everything you want when you pay.”
A street girl wraps up against the coldCredit: News Group Newspapers Limited
Pressure to curb the sex trade has been mountingCredit: Supplied
At another deluxe brothel in Sants-Montjuic, owned by the same company, Colombian prostitute Chloe, 19, said: “I have serviced a lot of English people. They are the ones who tip the most, so I like them.”
The brunette speaks barely any English so the manager of her brothel, near luxury hotel Nobu, brokers her transactions then tells her what the clients expect.
The £114 her brothel charges for half an hour includes an erotic shower, full sex and a free drink.
Chloe said: “Some of the clients are more loyal to the ladies here than they are to their own wives.”
She does not see the work as a career, but rather a way to fund her planned training as a nurse back home in Colombia — and her family is fully aware of how she is planning to pay for that degree.
But many of her fellow sex workers have no such plan for a way out.
Jasmine, 30, from Central America, works at the sumptuous Felina brothel in Les Corts but has not told family or friends about the sordid life she leads.
She said: “Nobody knows that I am doing this. It’s something that I’m not proud of and not something that I want to share.
“My family and friends think that I work as a hairdresser because that is the job I used to do. But after two years, I decided to start doing what I do now because I need the money. The wages in Spain are generally really low. I made the decision to do this because I have to pay the bills and also have a family to support back home.”
When asked if anyone famous had come through the door of their brothel, the girls giggled and said footballers — but refused to name names.
Voodoo rituals
But while Jasmine and Chloe are afforded comfortable surroundings, the choice to set their hours and have security on hand should anything go wrong with a client, that is not the reality for most women in their line of work — many of them trafficked to Barcelona under false promises.
Some have been threatened with devastating violence when sourced from Africa, while those from Latin America may have been wrongly told that other jobs await in Spain.
Most will then end up touting for trade in Raval. One charity working in Barcelona to help undocumented women escape from prostitution is Fundacio Surt, which makes direct contact with street sex workers.
Belen Camarasa, who works closely with the women, told us: “Services here start from as little as five euros for oral sex and go up to 20 euros for full sex. It will only last ten to 15 minutes as it’s all about a fast turnaround.
There are 300,000 ladies of the night in SpainCredit: Darren Fletcher
Sex workers at sumptuous Felina brothel in Les CortsCredit: Darren Fletcher
“These women live in poverty. This is their reality.”
Africans are one of the largest groups of women who are trafficked to sell sex in Barcelona and the wider Spain.
But their journeys to get there are often more traumatic than even the work that awaits them.
Cova Alvarez Diaz, who is head of gender violence at Surt, said: “There’s a lot of rape and violence. Gangs view it as a training process.
“By the time the women arrive in Spain, they are totally desensitised to what is happening to them. Many tell us that being prostituted here is easy compared to what they have gone through to get here.
“In Nigeria, before they go, gangs often do voodoo rituals to provide protection and control.
“Families back home are used to keep the women in line — they feel like they’ve failed if they can’t send money home.
“It’s common for these very young girls, all under 18, to disappear once they get here. Each year, they get younger.”
Two of the women Surt has helped are Sarah, 42, and Jennifer, 38, who both arrived from South America expecting to work in hospitality.
Instead, they were forced into prostitution, working in dirty and dangerous conditions and for very little pay.
They had to rely on the Red Cross for donations of condoms because their pimps refused to provide even this basic protection.
Sarah, a transgender woman from , said: “I turned to sex work out of necessity.
“You encounter everything — nice men, men who are drunks, drug addicts. You never know who you’ll meet.
“Someone can have a very kind face then turn out to be the worst person in the world.”
Both women had been hospitalised after brutal attacks by clients but feared telling the authorities that they were sex workers.
They also say they have been robbed.
Jennifer, from , who has two children back home with family who she sends money for, is no longer on the game — after it drove her to the brink of suicide.
She told The Sun: “I was told when I got here that I’d have a job as a kitchen assistant, but they took me to a spa where I was then subjected to all sorts of things.
“Being in that world led me to . Many times, it crossed my mind to take my own life.
“I was living just for the sake of living. You used to wake up and not know what kind of client you’d run into, what crazy person you’d face.
“It was constant anguish. Since I stopped, I am calmer.”
- Names changed to protect identity.
Sofia, manager of a deluxe brothel in Sants-MontjuicCredit: Darren Fletcher
Prostitution abolitionist and human rights lawyer Nuria Gonzalex LopezCredit: Darren Fletcher
Eze Chidiebere Paul
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