Tightening up of prostitution in public
La Jonquera has announced stiff fines (no pun intended) of up to 3000 euros for prostitutes, and their clients conducting their business in public. The size of the fine will depend upon where the offence takes place. For example, a fine will be greater if the transaction takes place near a school than it would outside a night club. The largest fine will be for those found to be having sex in a public place! La Jonq will also attempt to stem the flood of ‘bonimenteurs’ or ‘vendeurs à la sauvette’ illegally selling watches, belts, cameras etc on the streets.
In Catalonia alone there are 20,000-30,000 prostitutes…..On the main highway from Alcanar in the south and La Jonquera in the north there are an enormous number.
According to the Times Online “women choose to work the highway because they know that truck drivers and tourists will pass. The man in the car doesn’t have to go to a club: he passes all these women and if he wants one, all he has to do is pull over………….In a recent raid on a Catalan sex club called Lady’s Dallas, close to the French border, of the 225 clients questioned only 13 were Spanish, while 178 were French. The nationalities of the 142 woman at the club provide a snapshot of prostitution in Spain: 98 were Romanian, the remainder an assortment from eastern Europe and Latin America. Not one was Spanish. The raid provoked an indignant editorial in La Vanguardia that concluded that Spain “needs to decide if it wants to become a destination for sex tourists”.