Menu
Blog featuring travel tips, packing guides, videos and photography from around the world.
Like here in Amsterdam, the red light districts are often places that people come to see. A lot of people who travel want to have sexual experiences and are willing to pay for them.
But many tourist spots haven’t done anything about the problem.
When night falls on Mallorca’s most popular tourist area, Playa de Palma, street prostitution starts up.
A few hundred metres from the beach, women, most of whom are from Nigeria, advertise their services openly. Almost all of their customers are tourists.
“It’s clear that tourists are driving up the demand for prostitution on Mallorca,” says Rocio Lopez of Medicos del Mundo, an organisation that works to improve the rights of sex workers on the island. In the summer, when there are a lot of tourists on Mallorca, the number of prostitutes often doubles.
Red-light districts become places where people want to go. Experts say that sex tourism is a very different thing that happens in almost every country in the world, including Mallorca, the United States, the Dominican Republic, and many other places. “Sexual adventures are a real reason to travel,” says Antje Monshausen of Bread for the World’s Tourism Watch, which is a specialised unit.
“Red light districts,” like the one in Amsterdam, “are a tourist attraction for a reason.” Prostitution is a billion-dollar business in Spain alone, and tens of thousands of women work as prostitutes all over the country.
Since it is not against the law, no one knows for sure how many people do it. The Association for the Prevention, Reintegration, and Care of Prostituted Women (APRAMP) says that prostitution is more common in Spain than anywhere else in Europe. Spain is third in the world in terms of prostitution after Thailand and Puerto Rico.
As Mallorca shows, tourism is likely to play a big role in this situation. Exploiting dependency Monshausen says, “There’s less social control, people drink alcohol, and they let their hair down on vacation.”
After all, that’s what a lot of people want when they go on vacation: to get away from the rules of everyday life for a while. “We see a big difference in income between tourists and locals, especially in the tourism industry.
“Monshausen says that it is unethical to take advantage of the resulting dependence relationships.” This dependence became clear when the police of Mallorca went after the people who controlled prostitution on the streets of Playa de Palma.
They had lied to get the women into the country and then forced them to work as prostitutes to pay off tens of thousands of euros in debts. Medicos del Mundo says that about 95% of all prostitutes in Spain are immigrants who don’t have a permit to live there and can’t get any other kind of job.
“It’s a myth that these women choose to be prostitutes on their own,” says Rocio Lopez. “Because they would have to have a choice if that were to happen.” Children are at greater risk. Sex tourism is a big problem, especially when children are used as slaves, which happens in many places around the world. Josephine Hamann, of the charity ECPAT for children, says that this is not just about paedophile offenders.
“There are also a very, very large number of travellers who don’t have that kind of attitude but break the law when they have a bit of anonymity abroad,” she says. Hamann thinks that the problem will get worse because of the coronavirus pandemic.
She says that in the past few years, many families’ financial situations have gotten much worse. She says that the pressure to make money is getting worse.
“Because of this, children are in more danger,” she says. People in the tourism industry are now more aware of the problem.
Hamann says that sexual exploitation is still a problem that many people don’t want to talk about. “Many people would rather not deal with it at all if it also has to do with children.” Tourism Watch’s Antje Monshausen agrees that a lot of ground needs to be made up in this area. She says that almost no country or tourist spot wants to face the problem head-on.
No one wants to be known as a place where people go to have sex. There will be fines. Even in Mallorca, people rarely talk about prostitution.
Still, topless bars and other places like them on the Playa de Palma try hard and in the open to get customers. The police only check on the prostitutes who work on the street promenade every so often.
Rocio Lopez of Medicos del Mundo says, “There is still a lot of work to be done to raise awareness.” “Especially in terms of the tourists.” But soon, something important could change. The central government of Spain wants to change the criminal laws so that anyone who hires a prostitute in the future will have to pay a big fine.
© 2019 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
Copyright © Defoes Lifestyle All rights reserved