A study presented yesterday about the social and labour rights of sex workers has revealed that two out of every ten prostitutes that work in Barcelona do so in the Raval district of the city (where there are calculated to be around 400 such workers), the majority of whom are carrying financial debts from their country of origin.

Social and sex-worker groups have rejected the criminalisation of their activities by the local administration pending the approval of new anti-social bylaws in the Catalan capital.

The study, authored by Josep Figuerola, an expert in the Raval district, shows how the moves made by Barcelona City Council (the Ajuntament de Barcelona) - which is now trying to eradicate prostitution - and promoted during the late 1980s and the 1992 Olympic Games ‘when it closed down lodgings’, resulted in an increase of ‘1,000 to 30,000 the number of poor people on the streets’.

34% of sex workers in Raval originate from the African sub-Sahara; 33% from Spain; 25% from Eastern Europe; and 8% from Latin America. The majority of those working in the city’s sex trade have problems paying debts accrued in their own country of origin. Their clients originate mostly from Barcelona (32%), the African sub-Sahara, Islamic parts of Asia (22%) and Latin Americans (8%).

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