00.02.02

Street, Border Control

In Vilar Formoso  the border post stands empty... a careless driver might not even realize he is now in Spanish territory...these are the fruits of the free circulation of people in the European Union.

02.16

These pictures were filmed on St Valentine's Day. It is 10 pm... and the temperature remains stubbornly fixed at zero. Fuentes de Onoro, the Spanish village looks deserted, there's no-one on the streets or even an open cafe to have a drink and warm up.

02.32.

But behind this stillness there's a flourishing trade worth millions of pesetas every year...the Portuguese-owned "puticlubs"  (whore bars) here in Spain.

02.42

Music, people talking, men walking, women standing

03.09

Although we are in Spain the evening in Fuentes de Onoro is very Portuguese. The prostitutes are Portuguese, the club owners are Portuguese and the customers are also Portuguese. It takes no longer than an hour and a half to drive from Portugal.

04.05

In Spain, bars with prostitutes  are illegal, but they will be left to ply their trade in peace.

03.32

Interview: customer

Subtitled

Report: Where do you come from?

Cust: Lisbon

Reporter: You've come a long way. And you ended up here!

Cust: I am on  the road.

03.38

Rep: You're on the road? Where are you going?

Cust: to Burgos.

We are travelling to Burgos.

Rep: It is pretty out there.

03.44.

Man drinking at the bar,

03.48

Women dancing.

Subtitles end

Cust: Do you know it?

Rep: I do.

Cust: I don't. It is the first time I'm going there.

03.53

Rep: I was there for three months. Well, it wasn't exactly in Burgos, it was eighty kilometres from Burgos.

03.59

Cust: Also in a bar?

Rep: yes.

04.02

Cust: But I wasn't doing exactly what I am doing here.

04.03

Women sitting at the bar

They chat - but with a single objective. To invite you to have sex with them in exchange for five thousand pesetas.

04.10

Apparently, this woman is here of her own accord... But in truth, many of the women in this bar are forced to be here and to sell themselves as prostitutes.

04.20

Interview: Prostitute

Prost: I cried, I was scared and they would put me against a... not exactly a fireplace... they pushed me against it several times. They burnt my arms several times.

Rep: That was to make you prostitute yourself.

Prost: Yes, of course and we had to pay for the clothes...

04.47

Shadow of woman

Deolinda was only 13 years old when she was forced to go to  Spain. She was already a runaway. One evening, a friend offered her work in a restaurant. Waiting for her was a Portuguese pimp, who owned a whore bar.

04.59

Street, cars, women standing

Stories like this are repeated all over the country. It's common knowledge that people are skilled in the art of seducing and misleading young women who want to work in Spain.  Some of them already prostitutes. All are promised heaven and earth. When they get here they can be sold on from bar to bar, as this pimp explains.

05.16

Women standing on the street

05.17

Interview: pimp, hidden face

Pimp: fifty per cent are deceived, with promises of a good salary, of a good life because over there wages are three times higher than here. Jobs aren't easy to find, and they go. It's natural. Once they arrive, they become objects

05.42

The guy that takes them away from here... if she is a good looking object, he gets rid of her immediately in exchange for big number.

Reporter: He sells her?

05.51

Pimp. Yes. And then he disappears. Normally if she's difficult, or he doesn't like her, or if she was deceived, he has only one thing on his mind: to get there, to sell her and get out of there.

06.02

Rep: And he sells her to the bar owners?

Pimp: That's right. The bar owners or the so-called middle man.

06.09

Rep: And afterwards the woman is forced to prostitute herself to pay back some money?

06.10

Pimp: More than just some money. If she earns two hundred, how can she only hand over two hundred?

(laughing). She has to pay them whatever they want.

06.24

Reporter: and when she doesn't make as much as they want..

Pimp: She has no chance! No chance at all! From being kicked, head butted, tortured with wet towels, I don't know, a lot of things, cigarette burns, electric shocks, they get all sorts of things.

06.45

This man knows this way of life inside out. He is forty years old and has been a pimp since he was eighteen years old. He's no exception to the rule- he himself has taken women to Spain. He's taken five at at time.  He could put his feet up each night knowing he was going to earn a lot of money.

07.02

Pimp: They weren't forced to work, but... I gave them a certain freedom, the freedom from my vices! I never demanded that they did this or that. They did it because they wanted to.

07.19

Reporter: And  they gave you  money?

07.22

Pimp: Yes. Normally, in this sort of set-up, she likes her pimp. She doesn't give him some money - she gets home and she gives him all the money she's earnt.

07.31

It's a catch 22... the prostitutes either hand over their earnings to their pimp, or in the language of the street: they end up in ‘court'.

07.39

Interview: prostitute

Prostitute: They burn us with cigarettes stubs, beat us with sticks, kick us, they put salt on our cut knees, put us inside the freezer, pour freezing water on us, give us electric shocks...

07.53

Rep: Did they do they to you?

Prost: Some of it

07.56

Rep: What did they do exactly?

07.58

Prost : Salt, freezing water, beatings with a stick,  stabbing...

08.04

Reporter: Where were you stabbed?

08.05

Prost: I was stabbed... there is no need to say where.

08.11

Reporter: And how long did it last?

08.14

Prost: Three years

08.15

Reporter: What did they do with the salt?

08.18

Prost: I would be kneeling in the sitting room until my knees were bleeding.

08.24

Reporter: And that was at the end of the evening?

08.29

prost: It was at the end of the evening, they got back from their clubs and would torture those who didn't work

08.35

Red car

During three years of forced prostitution in Spain, Teresa has lost count of the number of times she was mistreated.

08.40

Background voices, men standing at the bar

Her first time was in a club just like this one. She was 20 years old.  During the time she spent in Spain, she visited each one of clubs along the Estrada 80 - which is the main road of the Iberia Peninsula joining Portugal to Spain.

08.55

City by night

One day, another pimp promised to take her back to Portugal.

09.02

Interview: Teresa

Teresa: He said he would take me to Portugal, and afterwards, well, he said he would take me to the Algarve. Only in the Algarve, with knowing it, I was sold again.

09.19

Teresa: I was sold to another pimp, and later... I came back to Madrid.

09.29

Teresa's story is typical.

She became pregnant, but that didn't stop her pimp using her to make money. She managed to run away one day, only because she managed to deceive the pimp and ring her family.

It was a daring act.  It may not seem hard to run away, but it is. The women are watched by the pimps day and night and the older prostitutes keep an eye on the new- comers.

09.51

And anyway, most of the whore bars have steel doors, video cameras, bars at the windows and high walls.

09.59

They eat and sleep here. All the conditions are stipulated in the contract of sale. They only leave when they are moving on to other bars, which is roughly every three weeks, to coincide with their menstrual cycle.

10.09

People in a club

These bars are sometimes called "contract houses" and are difficult to stamp out. No one has yet been able to prove that there's prostitution is rife inside.

On the surface they are legal... and they pay taxes like any other business.

10.25

Interview: club owner

Club owner: This is like any other cafe, our job is in the catering industry. My door is open to everyone. All sorts of people come here - lawyers, judges, everyone comes here.

10.38

Rep: You confirm that the majority are Portuguese?

10.40

CO: Yes, yes, I do. The majority of my customers are Portuguese.

10.43

Rep: And the women that work here?

10.44

CO: The majority are Portuguese. The majority of the girls are Portuguese. At this level, there are few Spaniards working in this area..

10.54

Rep: And you tell me there is no prostitution here?

10.56

CO: No. There is no prostitution going on in this house

10.58

CO: The girls are here... to keep the customers company.

11.02

Rep: You call it a "Hostess Bar"

11.05

CO: Yes, of course, the so called "hostess". This prostitution thing, people make it up.

11.07

Rep: So if I get here and want to have a drink with a girl and so on, and if I want to take her to a room?

11.12

CO: My dear friend, anytime the lady wants... there are no saints here. If  the lady likes you and wants to go away with you, that is none of my business.

11.25

Rep: But not under your roof?

CO: Not under my roof.

11.28

CO: They might prostitute themselves away from here.

But as far as I am concerned that is not prostitution. A woman is free to have relations as she pleases.

11.33

Music, woman standing in bar

Not under his roof? No - just out of sight. All these girls have in their hands the keys to a room. Behind these curtains is the reserved area. All we have to do is go up the stairs.

11.45

Interview: Pimp (hidden face)

Pimp: In ninety five percent of the bars in Spain, the prostitution is hidden inside... in the so called "reserved  area". Where there's a sofa like that one over there or a concrete bed. The customers arrives, orders a drink and a woman, pays and leaves.

12.05

Man standing at the bar. Woman walking towards him

Nobody knows how many Portuguese women prostitute themselves in Spain. But everyone knows that business is booming.

12.34

ENDS