Edition 63
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Friday, May 4, 2012
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THE SEX SLAVE ROUNDABOUT Exclusive by TONY MAYES
A MAJOR new initiative is to be launched in the Torrevieja area to help the "girls of the night" who are enslaved in prostitution. It comes after a new study revealed that up to 90 per cent of the women we see standing near roundabouts and beside orange groves on country roads are the victims of human trafficking. Many are tricked into coming to Spain with the offer of a job and a better life. But once they arrive, their papers are taken away; they are told they have to pay back the money they owe in getting to Spain, and most are threatened with violence to themselves and their families if they do not do what they are told. Prostitution in Spain has become a major industry, with sex tourism ranked as one of the highest in Europe. Another survey revealed that 39% of Spanish men admit to having used the services of a prostitute - and that the prostitution industry in Spain is now worth a staggering €50 million a day or €18 billion a year! A church in Torrevieja - the International Christian Assembly - is hosting a major seminar on June 17, entitled "Slavery of the 21st century" under the auspices of Madridbased Escuela de Diaconia along with the Ministry of Health and Social Politics of Spain. Social educator Carolina Sánchez Bermejo, who has eight years' experience of direct intervention with prostituted women and human trafficking in Spain, will be the principal speaker. The event will be conducted in English and Spanish and it is hoped that representatives of the local councils in Torrevieja and Orihuela will attend, together with social services and police. The aim is to first highlight all the problems and then, hopefully, organise a task force where organised and trained volunteers will go out into the streets, meet with the girls and try
Local church in campaign to clean up Torrevieja
tion - and I have no doubt they will stop at nothing to protect their ill-gotten earnings.’’ Maggie was horrified at what she learned through the classes. “It's been estimated there are around 400,000 girls and women working as prostitutes in Spain and the numbers are increasing all the time,’’ she added. "Shockingly it is now becoming increasingly socially acceptable for business meetings to end with an evening meal in a restaurant followed by a visit to a brothel." But what the 900,000 Spanish men who resort to prostitution daily fail to consider is that they are exploiting the girls and being accomplices in holding them in slavery. They also don’t consider whether the girls are free of sexually transmitted diseases. "We can imagine there are many occasions where men have become infected and have passed a disease on to their wives. After that they have to bear the shame of going to a to help them as much as they can. They will offer them clinic, or a lifetime of having to take drugs if they have conrefreshments and, hopefully, gain their trust sufficiently to tracted HIV.’’ establish a bond of trust. Most of the girls are brought in from from South and The initiative has come about after a member of the ICA Central America, Africa and Eastern European countries. church studied the problems of prostitution in Spain by taking Once in Spain they become the property of the pimps and classes on Prostitution and Trafficking of Women and attend- organised gangs that are making a fortune out of the ing a seminar in Madrid. As a result she has organised the ‘industry’. Some are raped by gang members in police uniform to convince the girls it is hopeless going to police to local meeting and is spearheading the local initiative. The woman (we’ll just call her Maggie because of the pos- complain. If they try to escape they are beaten and threats that the sible danger to herself and her family as a result of what she girls' families will be targeted more than often become real. is doing) says: "There is no question that there are a lot of “These girls are hopelessly trapped,’’ added Maggie. most unpleasant people involved in the prostitution industry' Turn to Page 4 holding these girls at their command by force and intimida-