The latest report on prostitution in the Basque Country published by Emakunde once again focuses on women and disregards the role of entrepreneurs who move the business. The report "Trafficking in women and girls for the purpose of sexual exploitation in the Basque Country: needs and proposals" has been coordinated by members of the universities of Deusto and Comillas.
Much of the research is based on interviews with NGOs and four club entrepreneurs, without the participation of Basque Government officials and municipalities that grant activity licenses. The author of one of the studies mentioned in the report, a well-known Basque lawyer, has been imprisoned this month for mistreating his former partner.
According to the 2018 data report, there are 56 clubs, 57 agencies and relaxation centers related to prostitution and 380 houses in Euskadi, and about 2,308 women practice prostitution. Calculates two customers daily, charging an average of 60 euros per service, and concludes: “Total €66,470,400.”
"It refers to several clubs located in an industrial estate in Bizkaia, but does not mention that the owner of one of them was a head of the Ertzaintza"
There is no breakdown of the percentages paid by women to pimps for their services, the rent they pay for sleeping in hotels, clubs and pimps’ homes, the alimony paid to them or the costs of medical supervision.
Once again, it focuses on the data of women detained for prostitution, without statistics of those detained for pimping, and is limited to cases of pimps of foreign nationality.
The study collected data since 2002. However, it does not mention that the largest raid against the laundering of the profits of clubs in the Spanish State, the Pompeii operation of 2015, focused on a Basque company, since 50 clubs in the State were linked to the company Larratruk de Gipuzkoa.
Until 2015, La Rosa, the group of entrepreneurs with the most strength in clubs in the Spanish State, related to police mafias, was based in the Basque Country. Emakunde’s study also refers to “the love line”: It refers to several clubs located in an industrial estate in Bizkaia, but it does not mention that the owner of one of them was a head of the Ertzaintza until 2006.
It is not a strange fit either ex officio or on a personal level. Next to our Mallabia farmhouse there was a club, we had the seat of the Egin newspaper in Bilbao surrounded by clubs, lived in the Bilbao La Vieja nearby and I have not walked away from Ordiziratu either.