Inside Europe’s new prostitution capital with £4 intercourse acts and superbrothels
A holiday destination popular amongst Brits has exploded into Europe’s capital for prostitution. Despite efforts to criminalise the profession, Barcelona has become a hotspot for sex tourism
Barcelona has become the heart of one of the biggest sex trade capitals in the world (Stock)(Image: )
Inside the popular Spanish city of Barcelona lies one of the world’s biggest sex trades worth billions a year as prostitution runs rampant.
The sex trade in the city is the third largest anywhere in the world – aside from Thailand and Puerto Rico – as prostitution, paying for sex, still remains legal in Spain.
While prostitution is legal in the country, soliciting in a public area is outlawed. However in Spain’s Catalan religion – where Barcelona resides – this rule is not enforced.
In response to the government’s aim to criminalise prostitution ladies of the night have banded together and formed a group called Stop Abolicion arguing they are protected by Spain’s law on the right to body autonomy.
A sex worker, Pamela, 40, has railed against the government’s efforts to criminalise the sex trade and said: “Nobody has the right to police my body.”
Speaking to the Sun the woman said: “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.”
Across Spain there are 300,000 ladies of the night with business being busiest in Barcelona, where women sell their bodies in brothels, on the street or in flats.
In Megabrothels, like the one lingering in Barcelona’s Sants-Montjuic neighbourhood, 20 women are shown off to a single rich man who would then have his pick and pay £114 for the woman for half an hour or £190 for an hour. Human rights lawyers have sounded the alarm on the many women and underaged girls who are exploited and fall victim to the sex industry.
In Barcelona’s Raval area, surrounded by tourist hotspots such as Las Ramblas, under-age girls fall victim to the sex industry as the area offer 15 minutes’ sex for £18 or oral for £4. The horror continues just a ten minutes’ drive from Las Ramblas near Barcelona football team’s Nou Camp stadium.
Many of the women involved in the sex trade in the area are women who are often forced into the industry due to being victims of traffickers as they originally hail from Africa, Latin America and Eastern Europe and are often abused by pimps.
Nuria Gonzalez Lopez, a human-rights lawyer and prostitution abolitionist has spoke out against sex tourism in the city and said: “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 of exploitation of all kinds of women.”
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