Spain to ban sex adverts from national newspapers

[alp227]

Source: The Guardian

The Spanish government has put itself on collision course with the national press with the announcement that it wants to ban adverts offering sexual services from their classified sections.

The explicit adverts, which fill at least a page in most of Spain's dailies, are worth €40m (£34m) a year to the struggling newspaper industry.

President José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero made the announcement during this week's state of the nation speech, saying it was part of a strategy to fight the people trafficking and sexual exploitation that was rife in the country.

"As long as these advertisements exist, they contribute to the idea of this activity as normal," he said.

The Association of Spanish Newspaper Editors responded by saying that the logical policy would be for the government to make prostitution illegal. "If it was illegal, then newspapers wouldn't carry the ads," a spokesman said.

Read more: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/jul/16/spain-sex-adverts-newspapers

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Hmm. Some post World Cup PR move right here? And aren't there other illegal activities/scams posted on classifieds anyway? What's the Spanish government doing about those? (And this is the same government that legalized same-sex marriage six years ago.)

I've started reading an independent weekly from my hometown, Metro; its classifieds have their share of dating and phone sex ads.

[xchrom]

1. Despite your 'concern' re: other issues - human traffic for sexual services

Takes a precedent.

It's called slavery.

[alp227]

2. Wow...really mind-opening...I don't remember seeing "human trafficking" ads on Metro

I wonder if anyone's scanned those Spanish classifieds. Do they explicitly promote slavery, or are they scams that lure naive women?

[xchrom]

3. That's either a great display of ignorance

Or an attempt at humor and wit- covering
a real crime with some misplaced notion
of sophistication.

Either way it's badly done.

[alp227]

5. (sighs) OK when will I get it?

Human trafficking=muy horrible.

So I think I was confusing chatline ads and "meet me" ads. All I said was that I wanted an example of such ads that the government wanted to ban. The article quotes a spokesperson for the newspaper association saying that newspapers wouldn't have accepted the ads in the first place if the ads were for illegal activity.

Spain bans brothels and pimping but not prostitution.

[unlegendary]

4. Same exact problems are here in the US as well.

As a matter of fact you can find it in a few key strokes by going to craigslist where women and children even are bought and sold more than used cars by some of the slimiest humans on this planet, the pimps.
I'm all for free speech, but these slime balls have turned a once fairly honest man meets woman etc type thing into a multi-billion dollar scheme for not only the users of society, but for corporate slime as well.. Oh that's right.. they're both users who could really give a rats as what happens to the least able to defend themselves among us.
I never thought I would say to shut down a money maker for the print medium, but they need to find a better way to turn a buck or turn it over to the internet and fold their tents. If so called democracy can't exist without selling slaves on the open market then we're all doomed. So what else is new, huh?

[Meldread]

6. This is a ridiculous and counter-productive move.

I'm all for banning human trafficking. Slavery in all forms is one of the worst crimes that can be committed. Yet, neither banning these ads nor banning prostitution will do nothing to solve that problem. All it will do is create a secretive black market, much the same as here in the United States - where, yes, human trafficking also exists.

There are two sane ways to go about dealing with the problem. First, they can regulate prostitution to ensure the safety of both the prostitute and their customer. This helps push pimps out of the picture, and gives prostitutes rights against those who abuse or mistreat them. It also creates an open market place for them to operate, allowing the government to better monitor the activities and target those who engage in human trafficking. (It also makes human trafficking less profitable because it best thrives in a black market.) Second, they can allow things to remain as they are, and conduct random undercover "checks" of those who advertise. If they locate someone who has been trafficked they can then work their way up the chain to uncover those behind it.

I favor the first path, but in either case it means the prostitutes have to be allowed to operate openly and legally. Creating a black market will only strengthen those who engage in human trafficking, which is why it's ridiculous and counter-productive - just like the drug war in the United States empowers drug cartels and gangs.

[defendandprotect]

7. Certainly we can't deny the rise of the slave trade industry . . . including in America .. .

something to pay seriosu attention to -- !!

Sexual enslavement like every other exploitation of nature and humans rises with the

rise of the right -- !!

[David__77]

8. So someone can't advertise their webcam sex service?

Why not? What's wrong with that?