Read news from:
Austria
SHARE
COPY LINK

PROSTITUTION

Prison for sex buyer blackmailers

Three men have been imprisoned for the robbery and blackmail of men looking to buy sex from teenage girls over the internet. The men posed as young girls on chat sites to lure the unsuspecting would-be clients into their scam.

Published: 23 December 2008 16:04 CET

Lund district court on Tuesday sentenced the gang’s leader, a 23-year-old man, to two years and nine months in jail for robbery, blackmail and receiving stolen goods. The other two men, aged 32 and 48-years-old, were given sentences of two years and one year and nine months respectively.

A 26-year-old man and a 30-year-old woman involved in the case were given fines and sentenced to community service.

The gang came into contact with their victims through an internet chat forum, where they posed as teenage girls looking to sell sex.

When the clients turned up at the agreed meets there was no young woman waiting for them and instead they were met by members of the gang who in several cases threatened and robbed the men.

On several occasions the gang made use of public computers at a Landskrona council employment office to carry out their deception.

The ten victims of the scam, all men from southern Sweden, were also awarded damages totalling 120,000 kronor ($15,350).

PROSTITUTION

Spain’s top court reinstates first sex workers’ union

Spanish sex workers have the right to form their own union, the Supreme Court ruled Wednesday, overturning an earlier court decision ordering the dissolution of Spain's first such labour organisation.

Published: 2 June 2021 16:34 CEST
Spain's top court reinstates first sex workers' union
Photo: Oscar del Pozo/AFP

Known as OTRAS (or “the Sex Workers’ Organisation”), the union was discretely set up in August 2018 but was closed three months later by order of the National Court following an appeal by the government of Socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez.

But following an appeal, the Supreme Court ruled in favour of OTRAS, saying that its statutes, which had triggered the initial legal challenge, were “in line with the law” and that sex workers “have the fundamental right to freedom of association and the right to form a union”.

In its November 2018 ruling, the National Court had argued that allowing the union to exist amounted to “recognising the act of procurement as lawful”.

READ MORE:

Contacted by AFP, the union did not wish to comment.

When it was founded, OTRAS received the green light from the labour ministry and its statutes were publicly registered in the official gazette the day before the government went into a summer recess.

But three weeks later, the government — which portrays itself as “feminist and in favour of the abolition of prostitution” according to Sanchez’s Twitter feed at the time — started legal moves against it.

In Spain, prostitution is neither legal nor illegal but it is tolerated.

Although it is not recognised as employment, there is a large number of licensed brothels throughout the country.

READ ALSO: 

SHOW COMMENTS