Organisation to stand up for sex workers launched in Barcelona

A NEW organisation created to help and protect the rights of sex workers in Catalonia has been promoted in Barcelona.

The association is called the Assembly of Sex Work Pro-Rights Activists of Catalonia and is designed to pressure and lobby political parties to help create and enforce laws to protect prostitutes in the city.

The group combines representatives from women’s rights groups, trade unions and feminist movements. At the organisation’s launch, the group’s spokesperson Monte Neira said that sex workers were some of the most discriminated against and criminalised women in society and it was felt nobody else was going to speak up for sex workers if the assembly did not.  

Violence against sex workers, both from brothel owners and clients, is a considerable problem in Spain and prostitution itself lies in a strange political limbo in the country. Brothels and sex workers are a common sight in many urban areas in Spain and paying for sex is not illegal, but making a living from the trade is.

Numbers of sex trade workers are thought to be on the increase in Spain since the beginning of the financial crisis.