Crime is almost always one step ahead of the law, because a law has to be broken before police can act. And in the seedy underworld of prostitution, sex traffickers have come up with a new strategy to make it even more difficult for authorities to catch up.
It used to be that when a woman was taken from her country to be sexually exploited in Spain , they were told they would be taken to grand party venues, which were in reality brothels. The business plan is simple and extremely profitable. First, the apartment is rented by a woman working inside the organization who uses a false identity in case her workers ever try to report her.
The women are easier to control inside the apartment. The space also provides an environment where the victims can be groomed for the next stage in their career β the sex clubs. Some women come to the apartments of their own accord. Many of these women do not have legal status in Spain, and some are already on track for deportation by the authorities. Their lack of legal status makes them easy to manipulate, both physically and emotionally. In the apartment, each woman will share a room with two or three others and use it for her clients.
All dirty money. On the N-IV highway, there are more than female sex workers in less than kilometers. What matters is not the apartment itself or the women, but the phone numbers, which are vital for keeping the clients. A quick glance at the number of sex clubs thriving in Spain indicates just how profitable the business is. This pattern is repeated across great swathes of the country, with venues ranging from small brothels to spectacularly large establishments filled with prostitutes. Like hamsters on an ever-spinning wheel, the women spend a maximum of three years in the clubs and are then returned to the apartments, this time as expired goods.
English version by Heather Galloway.
