Prostitute clients could face fines

BALEARIC vice-president Rosa Estaras said yesterday that she would welcome and support any measures to stamp out prostitution - including fining clients. As part of her new drive to “wipe out slavery,” as the vice-president referred to prostitution, Estaras held talks with the director of the Balearic Women's Institute, Isabel Llinás, yesterday to discuss new ways of eradicating prostitution in the Balearics. Estaras said that one of the suggestions discussed was to fine clients, as they do in Sweden, in an attempt to disuade people from hiring prostitutes.
The vice-president said that she is open to all and any suggestions to “bringing an end to prostitution.” Over the past few years, prostitution has become a burning issue in the Balearics, not only for the authorities and women's rights groups, but for residents living in the area frequented by prostitutes, many of them immigrants. The issue has sparked protests and demonstrations which prompted the authorities to move the prostitutes out of residential areas in Palma.