SHARE
COPY LINK

SEX TRADE

Zurich ‘sex boxes’ to open next year

Drive-in sex boxes will be opening in an industrial area of Zurich next summer as city officials attempt to put a lid on prostitution in downtown red-light districts.

Zurich 'sex boxes' to open next year
Model shows what sex boxes will look like (Photo: City of Zurich)

City council on Monday approved the installation of the boxes, meant to be places where prostitutes can take customers and conduct their business discreetly, in the Alststetten area.

The boxes, which are used in various German cities, are covered, garage-like structures wide enough for a car to be parked.

Approved by city voters in March after discussions for a couple of years, plans call for them to be operational in August, with construction starting in May at a cost of around 2.4 million francs.

At the same time the city will be closing off to the sex trade areas, such as the Sihiquai, where open prostitution has become a social problem, often involving crime, violence and disruption for residents.

The city is providing social and health care services and maintaining a road barrier on the Zahringerstrasse as part of its package of measures to control the sex trade.

Prostitution is legal in Switzerland but managing red light districts has proved to be a challenge in Zurich and other cities.

The country’s largest city is introducing licencing requirements in January for street prostitutes and for those plying their trade in “salons”.
 

Member comments

Log in here to leave a comment.
Become a Member to leave a comment.

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.

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