urban space

I collect images of the sex industry, as part of a project to educate myself and others about the diversity actually involved, rather than staying with an oversimplified, unilluminating idea about prostitution. A lot of my picture collection can be seen here. The silent video below from Satoshi shows streets in a Yokohama red-light district with rows of small shops or cubicles used for sex work. Similar arrangements of sheds or ‘cribs’ were called chon-no-ma, and, until fairly recently, were open and staffed by non-Japanese women. Chon-no-ma were the target of anti-trafficking drives from about five years ago.

A few things strike me about this display. First, the silent, steady, slow movement of the camera. Second, the similarity of the windows and doors we’re taken past, like suburban shopping strips developers impose a style on. Third, the absence of humans, who would ordinarily be the object of our attention (perhaps the video was made in the early dawn). The result is mesmerising.

He estado comentando la ola de ordenanzas en España e Italia que especifican cada vez más cuales son las actividades y comportamientos indeseables (desde el punto de vista de los ayuntamientos compuestos de personas de la clase media). Publiqué una serie de fotos que para mí demuestran lo lindo del espacio público: gente que duerme, besa, lava y hasta molesta los demás, pero que vive. Recién fui totalmente escandalizada por la ordenanza en Bilbao que prohibe prácticas sexuales incívicas, incluyendo sexo pública y notoria su realización, de forma que resulte imposible no advertirlo o evitarlo por parte de la generalidad de la ciudadanía. Un comentario sobre la ordenanza granadina cita las actividades específicamente nombradas como prohibidas.

La ordenanza de la ‘convivencia’ de Granada, octubre 2009, Alifa.org

. . .más de 150 artículos decididos a burocratizar la convivencia entre personas, a controlar toda relación social en la ciudad de Granada y evitar que no haya actividad que se realice fuera de lo establecido (y por ende, controlado) por el Ayuntamiento.

Lo peor de esta Ordenanza no es que asuma que los granadinos no somos capaces de relacionarnos correctamente si no nos imponen cómo. Ni que obtusas mentes crean que una normativa que prohíbe y castiga pueda ser educativa. Tampoco es lo peor saber que ya se compara con leyes como la de vagos y maleantes de la II República y el franquismo. Podría ser lo peor que la policía local tenga la potestad de decir qué relaciones entran dentro de una “correcta convivencia”, pero no, lo peor es su contenido:

- Prohibida toda manifestación de arte espontáneo: mimos, pintores, malabaristas, payasos cantantes, guitarristas y músicos y artistas tienen negado su derecho a ejercer como tales en la vía pública sin un permiso del ayuntamiento y una licencia, bajo riesgo de multa y requisación de instrumentos, material y ganancias. No, perdonen, no es sólo eso, también significa que yo no podré irme con un amigo a un parque a tocar la guitarra, porque sería ilegal y me podrían multar por ello.
- Prohibido cualquier trabajo o relación monetaria en la vía pública. Es decir, no está permitido ningún trabajo, venta o transacción… Si tu gata ha dado a luz, ten cuidado con ofrecer los cachorros en la calle, puede que te salga caro.
- Prohíben dormir en la calle, petición de limosna y, en definitiva, toda actividad que se asocie a pobreza y mendicidad, por supuesto, con multas asociadas. Nadie se plantea que quizás (solo quizás) si duermen en la calle, si tienen que pedir limosna, no es con gusto y disfrute. Y si lo es, creo que no hay duda de que una multa y requisación de lo ganado hasta el momento no solucionará nada.
- Se regula desde ahora dónde cómo y de que forma pueden los niños correr y jugar a la pelota, prohibiéndose en otros casos. Los niños molestan y no son rentables. No dan dinero, así que mejor quitarlos de nuestra vista (o al menos de la de los turistas, que son los que realmente importan).
- Prohibido sacudir mantas, regar macetas o colgar ropa en los balcones y ventanas. Sí.
-Prohibida toda muestra de actividad sexual (da igual si no hay dinero de por medio), dejando la valoración de qué es “actividad sexual” al Policía Local. Tengan cuidado con qué hacen con sus parejas porque pueden enfrentarse a multas importantes.
- Prohibido comer y beber en la calle. Da igual si es un bocadillo, un shawarma, un botellín de agua, o un refresco. Os podéis llevar una multa si la policía os ve.
- Prohibido el trabajo del sexo si éste es visible. La prostitución sólo será considerada falta muy grave si ésta se ejerce en el centro de la ciudad o cerca de centros educativos. Si están alejadas y no molestan, si no se ven, entonces sólo serán faltas leves…. Los trabajadores del sexo no nos importan, tan solo nos preocupa que la gente vea que existe en nuestra ciudad.
- Prohibido repartir panfletos o documentos de cualquier tipo en la calle, así como pegar carteles. Para culminar.

La ordenanza se puede bajar, ver página 42-artículo 72: Normas de conducta

Pero bueno, ¿existe algún límite? Parece que ahora ni vamos a poder reirnos en público.
Esta vez la prohibición va dirigida a prácticas sexuales incívicas, supuestamente para que quede claro que las autoridades no están discriminando al trabajo sexual sino incluyendo todo lo que no guste a - sí, ¿a quién exactamente? al Ayuntamiento, a personas que tienen ideas sobre lo que debería pasar y no en ese gran espacio que se denomina la calle. Recién publiqué muchos ejemplos de prohibiciones españolas e italianas: por ejemplo, el ultrajante problema de comer bocadillos en público. Comenté que con ese tipo de enfoque - lo que se está llamando el incivismo - se cuela el intercambio de sexo-dinero fácilmente. Ahora, lo que Bilbao propone aquí va más allá, hasta un concepto hiper-vago (prácticas sexuales) con el añadido de incívicas. Noto también que se refiere a multas de hasta 750 euros como leves  - extraño cuando se piensa en la gente que puede quedar multada por hacer algo incívico al aire libre. No compensa que los fondos van a parar a proyectos de rescate a las prostitutas y otra gente que ofenda.

Photo Rui Palha

Ponen condiciones vagas también sobre prácticas como andar en bici, volar cometas, y tocar música - que quiere decir que la policía se sentirá libre a interpretar esos comportamientos como les da la gana. Para mí, es todo escandaloso. 

Las multas por servicios sexuales revertirán en las prostitutas

Sonsoles Zubeldia, 1 abril 2010, El País

El equipo de gobierno del Ayuntamiento de Bilbao ha dado luz verde a una nueva ordenanza del Espacio Público que reúne en un sólo texto de 134 artículos diversos aspectos normativos relacionados con el uso de la vía pública, hasta ahora dispersos en distintos apartados reguladores. La norma “supera el vacío legal” existente hasta el momento en tres actividades diferenciadas. De un lado, se pronuncia sobre las los actos de ofrecimiento y de demanda de servicios sexuales que tengan por objeto concertar servicios sexuales retribuidos, incluyendo la negociación y realización de los mismos en un espacio público. Estas prácticas quedan prohibidas, pero ello no implica el veto expreso a que las prostitutas sigan estando en la calle ni que los servicios no puedan ser prestados en pisos o locales. Fuentes municipales señalaron que el foco principal va a ponerse en los clientes y no tanto en las prostitutas. Y es que la portavoz de EB en el consistorio, Julia Madrazo, recalcó ayer que la regulación de la prostitución es tarea del Gobierno central, que no debe pasar esa “patata caliente a los Ayuntamientos”.

Las prácticas sexuales en la vía pública se prohíben a toda la población

La ordenanza también se refiere a las “prácticas sexuales incívicas“, que quedan prohibidas. Este concepto incluye los actos en los que el sexo sea explícito y sea “pública y notoria su realización, de forma que resulte imposible no advertirlo o evitarlo por parte de la generalidad de la ciudadanía”. Este punto no se refiere sólo a los servicios sexuales retribuidos, sino también a los que pudieran practicar las parejas en la calle o en un coche.

Las sanciones por incumplir alguna de estas normas serán por regla general leves (multas de hasta 750 euros). Ahora bien, si los hechos tienen lugar en lugares donde sea frecuente la afluencia de menores, existan centros escolares cerca o bien la actividad implique un deterioro del mobiliario urbano se considerarán graves y las multas podrían alcanzar hasta 1.500 euros.

Con el fin de demostrar que esta ordenanza no persigue un “afán recaudatorio”, el director de la Oficina de Uso Público, Tomas del Hierro, señaló que el importe de las sanciones que se impongan en materia de ofrecimiento y demanda de servicios sexuales irá destinado a la financiación de programas municipales o a la subvención de entidades que tengan por objeto la ayuda o colaboración con el colectivo de personas que ejercen la prostitución en la calle. Además, la recaudación de las multas que se impongan por la práctica del botellón, que sigue prohibido, irán a parar a la financiación de programas de ocio para jóvenes.

Otra novedad incluida en la ordenanza, que entrará en vigor en el tercer trimestre de este año, es el fin de la prohibición de actuaciones artísticas y musicales en la vía pública. Así, podrán cantar o tocar algún instrumento libremente quienes no molesten el tránsito peatonal, no se ubiquen en zonas de terrazas de hostelería y no requieran de forma activa la aportación de donativos, aunque sí pueden colocar un recipiente para ello. Eso sí, no podrán permanecer más de 45 minutos seguidos en un mismo punto. Pasado ese tiempo deberán trasladarse al menos a 200 metros. También tendrán horario -de 10.00 a 15.00 y de 17.00 a 22.00-.

La nueva norma regula también el tránsito por aceras y espacios peatonales. Queda prohibido andar en bicicleta salvo que la concurrencia de personas lo permita, tanto en el caso de adultos como de menores. No se puede zigzaguear y adelantar a personas con menos de dos metros de distancia. También queda prohibido volar cometas, aviones teledirigidos, boomerangs y similares. La ordenanza también simplifica los trámites para obtener licencias y regula la venta ambulante y la celebración de eventos.Inspectores vigilarán que se cumpla

Those concerned about justice for sex workers focus on the law. If you’re interested in culture, however, you find that the sex industry looks and acts quite similar no matter which prostitution law is in place: the scene - the milieux - tend to be similar everywhere, with stylistic local differences. The health problems, the economics, the labour issues also are remarkably alike across cultures and borders, so that what workers experience in Ghana resembles what they experience in Thailand or France, and so on. Not so long ago I published a vague but suggestive story about the diversification of the sex industry in Pakistan,  Now here’s another story from there about how that old favourite ’street prostitution’ has changed with the times, so that mobile phones play a big role. The reporter’s tone is pleasantly neutral, and note that he ends with my point about the law: ‘In a country where commercial sex is officially prohibited, it is usually available just a few minutes’ drive away.’ Note: 100 pkr = 0.89 euro

Business as usual for street prostitutes

Amar Guriro, 16 April 2010, Daily Times

Karachi, Pakistan: In the simmering heat of the afternoon, two ladies, one in her early 20s wearing shalwar kameez and other in a burqa, stood on the pavement under the shadow of a tree. Several cars and motorcycles queued up beside them. A young man on a motorcycle talked to the ladies, the one in shalwar kameez shook her head in refusal and the man left.

Then a man in a car came by, rolled down the window, and spoke to the women. However, he left as well. Then another motorcyclist spoke to them for a while and the girl in the shalwar kameez went with him on his bike. The lady in the burqa stayed back. The queue was over and all of them went their way. This was a typical scene out of the many that take place daily outside the nation’s founder Quaid-e-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah’s mausoleum, where dozens of street prostitutes stand and wait for customers. Many of them have their own places where they can take their customers to provide their services.

Gone are the days when the famous Napier Road in the downtown area of the city was supposed to be the centre of commercial sex. One can find street prostitutes waiting for customers at different spots while driving around the Mazar-e-Quaid, near the Do Talwar roundabout, on Shahrah-e-Faisal, MA Jinnah Road, Tipu Sultan Road, Main Korangi Road, etc. Their presence also becomes a nuisance for the other ladies taking a walk or waiting for buses, since the people ‘on a hunt’ often mistake them for sex workers and bug them. In recent years, Karachi has become a major market for prostitutes and attracts sex workers from other provinces since they can fetch higher rates for their services in the city.

One can find sex workers of different ages and ethnicity in Karachi. From a 15-year-old girl to a woman as old as 50, they could be of any ethnicity or even foreigners such as Russians and Burmese. The rates start from around Rs 400 and could go up 10 times this amount depending on the time, service, age and features of the sex worker. According to a sex worker, more than 150 street prostitutes roam inside the premises of Mazar-e-Quaid during the day. They usually sit on a bench in the lawn of the mausoleum so their customers can single them out easily.

Usually, they have regular customers, who know which spot they prefer and the sex worker then takes her customer to her home. “It is a risk to go with just anyone, so usually we rent a home and when we find a customer, we take him to our place. We charge extra amount for this service,” a sex worker told this scribe. She said the employees of the mausoleum know about their presence. “Sometimes we find two or three customers in a day, while on some days there are none.”

Convincing a street prostitute to let this scribe visit her house and speak about her business was not an easy job. However, when one finally agreed to it with the help of a politician who is her customer, this scribe drove towards the place thinking that the place would be something out of the movies, situated in a narrow lane, have a long row of rooms and sex workers turning up in odd make-ups, etc. But surprisingly, it was nothing like that and in fact, it was situated in a double-storied building in the Lighthouse area, where a young lady, who only told this scribe her nickname ‘Bindia’, lives with two of her colleagues. Bindia said cell phones had made their business much easier and the role of the ‘middlemen’ was almost finished now. She said that usually they manage to evade police, but if caught, they are asked for bhatta, which is provided in the form of a free-of-cost service. “most of the girls in this business are unaware about sexual diseases,” she said.

In a country where commercial sex is officially prohibited, it is usually available just a few minutes’ drive away.

Gentrification always tries to make street life more orderly, less messy, more suited to middle-class tastes. Recently I published stories about city ordinances in Spain and Italy that name specific activities to be banned in public places: bathing in fountains, eating sandwiches, selling sex. This story about Mumbai describes how a traditional red-light (and slum) area is replaced during gentrification, with interesting attention to shifting social alliances and ideas about the sex industry.

Red light district swaps sin for skyscrapers
Clara Lewis, Times of India, 28 November 2009

Till about four years ago, garishly painted women in glittering attire were a common sight on Cursetji Shuklaji Street, a busy road in Mumbai’s notorious red light district, Kamathipura. Once known as Safed Gully (White Lane) on account of the European prostitutes that it housed during the British Raj, Shuklaji Street was the place where, for years on end, one could find sex workers plying their trade. These days however, they’re out there not to solicit but to await the private taxis that ferry them to dance bars in the suburbs.

From 50,000 sex workers in 1992 (a statistic recorded by the BMC as part of its AIDS documentation ) to a mere 1,600 today, Kamathipura and the adjoining Foras Road are a mere shadow of their former selves. The street-facing brothels have given way to little shops vending CDs and mobile phones; there’s also a clutch of video parlours where boisterous youngsters throng to catch the latest Telugu blockbuster.

Gentrification is slowly descending on Kamathipura , like it has on many of Mumbai’s distinctive boroughs. The one-storey, ground-hugging structures are making way for dizzy skyscrapers - two, of 35 storeys, have come up on Shuklaji Street, while another two, 47 storeys each, are nearing completion. Salim Balwa, director of DB Realty, the company that’s busy making over the area, is planning several more projects here. “The space crunch in Mumbai has meant that you go looking for land where no development has happened,” he says. All the towers overlook Kamathipura.

Balwa, who’s developed 10 lakh square feet in the area and is in the process of acquiring another 3.5 lakh, is sure that he’s on to a good thing. “All said and done, the place is centrally located, and it is better than living in far-off Mira Road,” he says. The present residents, most of whom live in houses that are about 100 sq ft in size, will get 300 sq ft after redevelopment, says Balwa. And, of course, there will be a more-than-neat profit for him.

It was the twin factors of AIDS and the Maharashtra government’s redevelopment policy that played a major role in getting sex workers to move out of the oldest profession in the world and subsequently out of Kamathipura. The AIDS scare led to the first serious government intervention in the area’s prostitution dens: Dr Jairaj Thanekar, Chief Executive Health Officer, BMC, who worked in Kamathipura for 15 years to implement the AIDS intervention programme, says the corporation played a key role in reducing the number of prostitutes . “From organising raids on the Yellappa markets down south - the main source of girls for Kamathipura - to raiding the brothels, we made it difficult for prostitution to function,” he says. “From 1999 onwards, the number of sex workers started dwindling.”

When the BMC intervened, the rate of transmission of HIV was a shocking four per cent. By then a large number of sex workers had died. “Brothel owners, faced with sex workers who kept falling ill, moved them out to other brothels in Mulund, Bhandup and Ghatkopar, but procuring new girls was also becoming difficult,” says Thanekar. This and other factors - a reluctance among landlords, newly aware of AIDS, to lease out their premises to prostitution, spiralling rents, police raids, and the emergence of a new generation of financiers who got into more lucrative ventures - hastened the downward spiral of prostitution in Kamathipura.

The reconstruction wave of dilapidated buildings completed the process. “Several people were bought out by the builders,” says a brothel owner. “Gangubai Chawl on 11th Kamathipura Lane was among the first to be torn down and reconstructed into a six-storey building by a private developer. Normal households moved in.” The stigma attached to Kamathipura began to dwindle somewhat, and the newly reconstructed prostitution dens began to be put to other uses - for the last four years, businessmen have been renting out the infamous rooms to small manufacturing units. Mohammed Israr, a 22-year-old native of Bihar, who assembles travel bags for a local manufacturer, has rented 600 sq feet in a one-storey structure in Kamathipura. He pays a stiff monthly rent of Rs 12,000 for the space, but says that it’s worth the money, given the central location.

Abdul Sattar, a local pan-beedi stall owner on Lane 13, has been in the business for the last 15 years. “Earlier, sex workers’ clients frequented my stall,” he says. “There were a lot of goons and hangers-on around. Now, proper businessmen come here. It’s a welcome change, as people working in the vicinity are no longer looked down upon. There was a time when we were ashamed to tell our relatives that we lived and worked in Kamathipura . But not any more.” Adds Sadiq Ismail, who owns a consumer goods shop on 12th Kamathipura Lane, “I live in a house above my shop with my wife, three sons and a daughter. There is nothing shameful about living here any more.”

Street named desire

Kamathipura is Mumbai’s oldest and Asia’s largest red light district. It got its name from the Kamathis (workers) of Andhra Pradesh. They worked as labourers on construction sites. The neighbourhood also had Chinese residents who worked as dockhands and ran restaurants. Kamathipura was formerly Lal Bazaar, an area set aside by the British for their troops’ sexual pleasures. By the end of the 19th century, Lal Bazaar was known as a “tolerated area” as prostitution was illegal. At the time, Bombay and to a lesser extent Calcutta were the most important cities in an expanding prostitution network. Cursetji Shuklaji Street in Kamathipura was called Safed Gully as it was home to European prostitutes. The brothels here were classified into first, second and third class. In 1916, the British set up the Venereal Disease Clinic, the first of its kind in Bombay. The BMC took over the clinic in 1925. Read the rest of this entry »

Activities deemed improper for public space: I’ve published on them several times in Spanish because the trend to formally prohibit particular behaviours is strong across Spain, where selling and buying sex are usually on the list. This is interesting to those who follow ideological debates about prostitution law - which law best ‘controls prostitution’, as the expression usually goes. Such general laws are largely ineffective anyway (ask me for an academic article on that).

Prohibited activities from the other day’s list - see wonderful pictures - are expanded today to include some Italian cities’ prohibitions. Planning policies that favour more regulation of public urban behaviours are frequently described as gentrification, by which middle-class ways of behaving are favoured. Thus drinking seated at an outdoor cafe is seen as all right, but drinking out of a can or cup while standing in the street nearby is not. Indoor activities are clearly favoured, especially when you have to pay to be inside. The behaviours to be prohibited are also often identified as coming from ‘outsiders’, not authentic local natives who know how to live properly. Activities mentioned in news stories like those below mix ways of living with commercial activities.

Some similar occupations are tolerated: rose peddlers to couples in bars, street musicians who aren’t very good, folkoric performers for bored queue-waiters, vendors of umbrellas when it starts to rain. The tolerance suggests that prohibitions are whimsical.  Notice also that some behaviours similar to the ones that get proscribed are idenfied as okay. Residents of Clinton Hill in Brooklyn described changes when mostly black and family residents were replaced by whites to Lance Freeman. The older residents liked to barbecue in the park, whereas the new residents like to sit and get tans or walk their dogs. Newer residents object to cigarette smoke in the street, children riding bikes and scooters and young men congregating for no particular purpose. Freeman said ‘You have on the one hand the more romantic view of public space as a place where people can come together unfettered unrestrained, compared with the view of public space as a place of ordered, controlled recreation. Gentrification is typically associated with the latter, as a place where space is controlled and privatized, with less opportunity for random interaction.’

Don’t miss the photographs from the other day of prohibited activities.

Here are excerpts from two Italian stories:

Roadside window-washers threatened with jail

Stephen Brown, 29 August 2007, Reuters

Rome: Illegal immigrants in Italy earning a few coins by washing windscreens at traffic lights could face up to three months in jail after Florence launched a crackdown and other cities said they might follow suit. Many cities are already taking action against what is seen as “imported” behavior such as tourists taking off their shirts or eating hamburgers in the piazza in Venice, or getting drunk in public in Rome — something image-conscious Italians avoid. Foreigners are also blamed for much of the street crime in a relatively safe country. Most people wielding sponges on street corners are Romanian gypsies, often young women and children. . .

. . . Rome’s Mayor Walter Veltroni, who has taken action against illegal gypsy camps and now vows to clean up rowdy nightlife and public drug-taking and drinking in popular neighborhoods like Trastevere, said window-washers are so pushy “that people are virtually ravaged at every traffic light and street corner.” “People must realize that behind the window-washers there is exploitation of minors, which is a crime. Like prostitution this is a racket that must be smashed,” Veltroni told reporters.

In Verona, Mayor Flavio Tosi, who has previously taken action against people eating sandwiches in public, said he would monitor the experiment in Florence: “If the new regulation manages to deter the window-washers, we will adopt it too.” Some civic groups in Florence applauded the rules which city officials said acted on complaints of window-washers “becoming more aggressive, especially to women alone in their cars.” The city’s public safety officer Graziano Cioni stressed that the aim was “not to punish beggars or poor people” but to combat “arrogant and violent” behavior against motorists. However, leftist groups in the city called the new measure excessive and regional Communist party chief Niccolo Pecorini termed it “unworthy of Florence’s hospitable traditions.” 

Verona mayor set on discouraging prostitution

1 August 2008, Stranitalia

Mayor Flavio Tosi is the first Italian mayor to take advantage of a public security law voted into law last week by the new Berlusconi government and which gives city administrators greater powers regarding urban safety, including the right to increase pecuniary sanctions for clients of prostitutes even to as high as 500 euros, the equivalent of $780 dollars.

Mayor Tosi, a member of the separatist Northern League party, has been waging a war against prostitution, by women or transsexuals, for some time now. His first move was to ticket the drivers of cars stopping near prostitutes to negotiate prices by accusing them of interfering with traffic. But that fine amounted to only 36 euros and proved effective only with Veronesi men who wanted to avoid having to identify themselves to police on their home turf. People from other neighboring cities such as Brescia, Padua and Mantova, said the mayor, were not deterred.

In Verona, the city of Romeo and Juliet, the critical zone is the neighborhood around the train station, a residential area which every night sees hundreds of scantily clad prostitutes looking for business. So far 42 of the newly high fines have been issued an the mayor says he is eager to see that kind of effect it has. . .

. . . Mayor Tosi is in the forefront of this battle. But this week, Tosi signed two other controversial ordinances, one against begging in public as has already been done in Venice and Florence and the other to increase fines for the consumption of alcoholic beverages on the street. That ordinance also prohibits littering, sleeping outdoors, going shirtless, bathing or washing animals in public fountains, smoking in playgrounds and - once again as in Rome, the senseless law against eating sandwiches while walking down the street.

Varias municipalidades en España han optado por esquivar los debates parlamenta-rios sobre la prostitución en sí, incluyendo la venta de sexo en las actividades prohibidas por ordenanzas cívicas sobre el uso del espacio público (la calle). Así el vender sexo parece ser solo uno de una serie de comportamientos vistos como perjudiciales a la vida urbana, lo que se llama la convivencia.  Es curioso ver cuales son las ocupaciones que supuestamente afean la ciudad y molestan los demás. Mira las fotos e intenta apostar qué es lo que tienen en común. Look at the pictures and guess what these activities have in common that cause city ordinances to name them as making cities ugly and disturbing peaceful coexistence.

Aquí son las actividades a veces mencionadas como prohibidas, una mezcla de formas de entretenerse y de ganarse la vida:

Los grandes ayuntamientos apoyan la norma contra el sexo callejero y la mendicidad

Ramón Ferrando Valencia, 21 enero 2010, levante-emv.com

Comunitat Valenciana: Los grandes ayuntamientos de la Comunitat Valenciana están detrás de la normativa de la Federación Valenciana de Municipios y Provincias que persigue la prostitución, la mendicidad, la actividad de los gorrillas o cualquier otra que perturbe la tranquilidad de los vecinos. La norma, como ayer adelantó Levante-EMV, es muy restrictiva y prevé sanciones de hasta 3.000 euros por mantener relaciones sexuales en un coche dentro de la ciudad o de 400 euros para las personas que compren música pirateada.

Un portavoz de la Federación Valenciana de Municipios y Provincias (FVMP) explicó que una comisión mixta formada por juristas y los responsables de las policías locales de Valencia, Alicante, Castelló, Elx, Paterna y Vila-real han trabajado durante cuatro meses en la elaboración del documento que prohíbe la mendicidad, la venta callejera sin licencia, la prostitución en la vía pública o la actividad de los gorrillas. La comisión ha celebrado una quincena de reuniones desde el 17 de agosto en las que de manera exhaustiva han dado forma al soporte legislativo que necesitaban los ayuntamientos para luchar contra fenómenos como el botellón o el vandalismo.

El texto, denominado Ordenanza de Protección del Espacio Público, cuenta con una amplio respaldo político. El portavoz de la FVMP recordó que lo aprobó por unanimidad el pleno de la federación y cuenta con apoyos de municipios como “Polinyà del Xúquer de Esquerra Unida, Torrent del Partido Popular o Muro d’Alcoi del Bloc”. Jaume Bronchud, edil de Participación Ciudadana de Mislata, apuntó que “es un documento marco que acogemos con optimismo porque puede contribuir a mejorar la convivencia“. El Ayuntamiento de Torrent ya está trabajando para aplicar las normas.

La Federación Valencia de Municipios y Provincias ha trabajado a fondo el texto para que no fracase como otras iniciativas. Elena Bastidas, presidenta de la federación de municipios valencianos y alcaldesa de Alzira, señaló: “Lo hemos hecho con la máxima rigurosidad. Han participado intendentes de las policías municipales y especialistas del ámbito jurídico. Es una norma muy completa que intenta dar respuesta a algunas de las cuestiones que nos planteaban. Ha sido auspiciada por todos los partidos y enriquecida desde el punto de vista técnico. Tiene un plus de garantía que posiblemente otras normas no tienen”.

La federación de municipios ha analizado normativas similares puestas en marcha con éxito en Barcelona, Lleida, Granada o Sevilla. Además, ha estudiado iniciativas como las del Ayuntamiento de Castelló contra las conductas incívicas, las de Alicante contra el botellón y los aparcacoches o las de Burriana que fija sanciones de hasta 3.000.

Elena Bastidas añadió que han previsto una gran cantidad de multas porque es “una normativa ambiciosa. No nos hemos limitado a los gorrillas o al botellón. Hemos abordado otros fenómenos que se han agravado con la crisis como la prostitución callejera. Tratamos de proporcionar normas específicas como la prohibición de lavarse en fuentes públicas o dormir en un banco“.

The fight for urban space: that’s what a lot of sex-industry news could be called. Jakarta cafes that provide opportunities for commercial sex are complained about by people who live nearby. The solution to tear down buildings en masse seems draconian compared with the manipulation of city ordinances common in Spain. The latter seek to get sex workers and clients off the streets and indoors, where they won’t offend certain residents’ sensibilities. In Jakarta, the offending market is already indoors. I know nothing about these particular businesses but suspect that a little work in the area of zoning or city planning might help avoid mass destruction of functioning businesses. It’s set to happen this week.

East Jakarta plans to raid tens of cafes in Pulogebang

4 January 2010, Beritajakarta

East Jakarta Municipal Administration is planning to conduct a raid on dozens of illegal cafes located in the area of Seruni flat, Pulogebang, Cakung next week, following public complaints over the existence of the cafes.

“We have sent letters to the managements of the cafes, urging them to immediately demolish their business places by themselves. We will tear down the buildings should they not conduct the order by next week,” said Murdhani, East Jakarta Mayor.

Agung (30), a local resident, said the cafes had become places for illegal sexual activities involving commercial sex workers. “The cafes also make noises, annoying the residents living nearby,” said Agung. There are around 20 units of cafe which also provide billiards located here. Every night, they are packed with visitors,” he said.

In the meantime, East Jakarta Public Order Police Squad (Satpol PP) head Tiangsa Surbakti said he had prepared a number of personnel for the operation. Regarding to the operation schedule, it is still waiting for the decision from East Jakarta mayor.

Commentators and laws make a crude distinction between indoor and outdoor prostitution, as though there were something essentially different in their natures. The photo below comes from Lyons, France; the short description from Paola Tabet is about an experience in northern Italy. In both countries, street prostitution is allowed whilst indoor sex businesses are prohibited and ’street prostitution’ sometimes means money and sex exchanged inside vans. So which is sex in cars, inside or outside? Here Tabet reports the silent efficiency of one kind of sex-money exchange. [English translation below]

La banalité de l’échange. Entretien avec Paola Tabet pour Mathieu Trachman, Genre, sexualité et societé, n°2, 2009

Tabet: J’ai été dans la camionnette quand elles travaillaient, c’était assez marrant et parfois même lumineux. Là j’ai eu en effet l’illustration de ce qu’elles veulent dire quand elles déclarent : « Nous, au client, nous ne donnons rien ». Donc à un moment un client habituel, un homme d’un certain âge, arrive : « Bonjour !» « Bonjour, ça va ? » Il monte dans la camionnette. Moi j’étais assise devant, j’entendais tout. Au début, la fille lui dit: « T’as vendu ta vieille voiture ? », il lui répond « oui ». Elle lui demande de baisser ou d’ouvrir son pantalon et lui donne le préservatif, on entend le camion bouger pendant un moment, puis elle reprend : « et combien on t’a donné pour la voiture ? » C’étaient pratiquement les seuls mots échangés.

I have been in the van when they were working, it was rather funny and sometimes even brilliant. There I actually had the illustration of what [sex workers] mean when they say ‘We give nothing to the client.’ Then at one point an habitual client, a man of a certain age, arrives. ‘Hello.’ ‘Hello, how are you?’ He gets in the van. I was seated in the front, I could hear everything. At the beginning, the girl says to him ‘Have you sold your old car?’ He replies ‘yes’. She asks him to lower or open his trousers and she gives him the condom, you could feel the truck move for a moment, then she continues ‘and how much did they give you for the car?’ They were practically the only words exchanged.

Es cada vez más común que las munici- palidades intentan controlar la prostitución callejera sin recurrir a los debates parlamentarios. Resulta perfectamente lógico, porque los últimos nunca llegan a ningún acuerdo puntual sino se estancan en conflictos ideológicos. Hace no tanto tiempo Granada impuso una ordenanza cívica del tipo que se ha comentado mucho en Barcelona (ver comentario e imágenes de los controles). En Granada una alianza de organizaciones que no quiere ver este tipo de control policial en su ciudad se enfrenta con el ayuntamiento y cuestionan la idea de la ‘convivencia ciudadana’ usada como justificación de la ordenanza. Cuando mucha gente oye tal frase le parece benévola, como si dijera que todos queremos vivir en paz. Pero así no es, sino, como los juristas objetan: un nuevo modelo de control de la ciudad que criminaliza a las marginalidades, oposiciones o disidencias político-culturales. En la foto se ve una calle desde arriba donde hay personas de pié, sentadas y que caminan. ¿Tiene un grupo más derecho de estar allí que otros? ¿Qué pasa si una mujer en minifalda se siente ofendida por un hombre en camiseta roja?

Llevan a los tribunales la ordenanza contra la prostitución de Granada

José A. Cano, 18 diciembre 2009, El Mundo.es

Granada: Recogiendo las quejas de las asociaciones y plataformas “antiordenanza” y añadiendo su propia consideración de que resulta “contraria” a la Carta europa de salvaguarda de los Derechos Humanos, la asociación Grupo de Juristas 17 de marzo ha presentado un recurso contencioso-administrativo ante el Tribunal Superior de Justicia de Andalucía (TSJA) contra la “ordenanza para la convivencia” aprobada el pasado septiembre por el Ayuntamiento de Granada y célebre por perseguir la prostitución callejera.

Los juristas consideran que la norma “excede de las competencias municipales” al no estar “amparada en ninguna Ley estatal o autonómica” y la califican de “un nuevo modelo de control de la ciudad que criminaliza a las marginalidades, oposiciones o disidencias político-culturales, inherentes a la conflictividad urbana”. Añaden que “puede vulnerar derechos fundamentales como el de reunión, manifestación y libertad de expresión”.

En la explicación de sus motivaciones, los juristas afirman que el texto “hace una protección aparente y no real de los bienes jurídico presuntamente protegidos”, esto es, la convivencia ciudadana. Llegan a afirmar que la norma “puede desencadenar situaciones de crispación conflictividad e incluso alarma social”. También argumentan que con esta se amplían “peligrosamente” los poderes de la Policía Local, de manera que “recuerda una tradición propia de otras épocas”.

Finalmente, el grupo incide igualmente en los “déficits democráticos” de la elaboración de la norma, opinando que “la base de cualquier normativa municipal debe ser el derecho a la participación política en su elaboración. Actualmente hay un gran movimiento ciudadano de oposición”.

Otras historias relevantes
Por qué no se puede sacar a las prostitutas migrantes
Por qué trabajar en la calle

Otros enlaces sobre la ola de ordenanzas cívicas en otras ciudades españolas, contribuido por Cliente X
· En Puerto de Santa María (Cádiz) y Getafe (Madrid)
· En Guadalajara
· En Sevilla