spaincolours.com, A bridge towards spain - Prostitutes win benefits in Spain

A high court in Seville has ruled that the owner of a so-called alternative club must make Social Security payments for 12 women who worked there as prostitutes.

The decision last week by a regional court in Andalusia is part of a nationwide struggle to define the status of prostitution, which is neither prohibited nor regulated under Spanish law.

Catalonia's regional government has already begun to regulate brothels and clubs.

In Madrid, prostitutes marched through the streets with picket signs last summer demanding labor rights.

In the majority opinion in the Seville case, the justices said that the women observed a regular timetable and rented space for their belongings and that they received a share of drink sales, which constituted an employment relationship, and were thus entitled to a contract with employer-paid Social Security benefits, which include health care and retirement benefits.

But the national association representing 300 such roadside clubs objects to such a concept, said the association's lawyer, José Luis Roberto. The clubs operate as hotels featuring shows or other entertainment, renting rooms to the women to entertain clients, he said.

He considers the prostitutes hotel guests and freelance agents who "capture clients" for the businesses as though they were marketing consultants.

"With all due respect to the justices, the court is asking business owners to become the pimps of these ladies," Roberto said.

Women's groups who defend prostitutes' rights have welcomed the verdict, but with reservations. They complain that it grants the women the right to Social Security payments as alternative waitresses, not sex workers, a category that does not exist under Spanish law. They advocate open regulation of the sex trade.

About 300,000 women are engaged in prostitution in Spain, generating annual business worth over $22 billion, said Roberto, who cited preliminary studies by a parliamentary committee.

Alicia Vano, president of Progressive Women of Andalusia, which in November formed a prostitutes' self-help unit run by former sex workers, said: "Because of the legal void, the women are at the whim of the brothel and club owners. They need financial help and training to leave the profession and the right to sign contracts with decent working conditions until they do."

The legal status of prostitutes has been unclear in Spain since the restoration of democracy a quarter century ago, when Franco-era prohibitions were abolished.

But the recent wave of immigration to Spain has thrust the murky issue into the spotlight.

Most prostitutes here are immigrants from South America, Africa and Eastern Europe "trying to pay off their huge debts to mafias who got them into the country illegally," said Cristina Garaizabal, spokeswoman for the Madrid-based Collective in Defense of Prostitutes' Rights, which organized the summertime demonstration.

As prostitution has spilled over from brothels to neighborhood streets, politicians have taken action to appease angry residents.

In 1998, a Bilbao municipal ordinance was passed to regulate brothels and clubs.

In July 2002, Catalonia's conservative government passed a law that required similar standards.

Last year, Parliament set up a commission to study the question of whether to regulate prostitution, but the panel has not yet reached a conclusion.

The New York Times

Note: from The New York Times