Palma to offer opportunities to illegal street sellers

A study by the Caritas charity, explains Molina, shows that the profiles of sellers vary in terms of issues such as education, training and language capabilities. His department is to therefore develop a "map of opportunities" which will establish the ways and means for each seller to pursue an opportunity dependent upon personal background.

With these individual profiles, the town hall will coordinate with other authorities so that people engaged in illegal selling can find alternatives. Molina argues that this applies to all the sellers. "No one wants to have to do this type of selling. There need to be opportunities for other types of activity and for earning a living."

The first step, says Molina, is to know exactly how many illegal sellers there are. At present the town hall can only make an estimate of the number and so therefore of the number of people who need to be offered new opportunities.

The Caritas study found that the majority of the sellers are Senegalese, whose principal social organisation is religious. The town hall would like to talk with the leaders of religious communities as a step towards providing assistance.