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PROSTITUTION

Prostitutes caught red-handed in Ticino

In the latest of a series of raids, Ticino cantonal police have shut down a bordello operating with illegal prostitutes from Romania, aided by law enforcement officials from that country.

Published: 26 October 2012 09:57 CEST

Officers swooped down on a house in Magadino, near Locarno, where six Romanian women were found with eight clients, cantonal police said on Thursday.

Four of the prostitutes were caught “in flagrante delicto” with customers, police said.

The raid took place on Wednesday night as part of Operation Domino, a campaign to root out illegal prostitution in the canton.

The manager of the Magadino house, a 52-year-old Lugano man, was questioned and charged with promoting illegal prostitution before being released, Ticino police said.

The six women were reported to immigration authorities for unlawful prostitution.

Police said only two of them had proper permits.

A woman inspector from the Romanian national police was involved in the operation.

She works with a division of the force dedicated to combatting organized crime and human trafficking.

International policing cooperation of this nature is being coordinated by a working group set up by Simonetta Sommaruga, federal minister of justice and police.

Operation Domino has led to the closure of more than two dozen prostitution rings.

The Ticino prosecutor estimated that 182 people had been arrested between March and July this year alone, including 170 women.
 
Rival gangs from Eastern Europe have become increasingly involved in illegal prostitution rings in Ticino, according to police reports.

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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”.

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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.

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