LIVING

Not everyone remembers it that way. “These problems have been going on for a long time,” said Maria Casas, president of the neighbourhood association Taula de Raval. “Sixty or 70 years, at least. There are periods in which the people get tired of complaining. Then there are times when they see that nothing has changed, and that’s when they start to mobilise a little more and confront City Hall.”

The current problems with the prostitutes, said Casas, are the result of the city’s historical, though periodic, attempts to suppress a formidable industry. In 1989, the Ajuntament closed down the 24 remaining meublés (hostels that rent by the minute) in the Raval. This action, while celebrated at the time by residents, merely pushed prostitution completely out onto the street. Since then, and usually in response to media attention, the city has cleaned up various streets and street corners through well-publicised police actions, but it has never managed to eradicate any part of the unseemly activity in the area. The prostitutes, along with the drug dealers, junkies and thieves are merely pushed from one area to the other, eventually gracing just about every doorway with their presence.

These itinerant colonies may explain the variation in residents’ perceptions. Andrew Dillon and Sara Epstein both live close by the Ramblas, only blocks from each other. “For violence and scumminess, I’d say the neighbourhood’s no doubt getting worse,” said Dillon, an Irish artist who has lived on Carrer Hospital for nearly five years.

Epstein, an Argentine emigré, owns a flat on Carrer de Carme. She said she sees less violence now, but more incivismo (unsocial behaviour). “Now there are more condoms on the ground. It’s dirtier. There are more young drunks with dogs living in the open air, urinating in public.”

Objective figures for the neighbourhood are hard to find. The Mossos d’Esquadra, who are in charge of filing and investigating robbery reports, do not release crime statistics by district. Catalunya’s Department d’Interior did report an overall 16.4 percent increase in violent theft last year, but that was citywide.

However, in the aftermath of the El País exposé, the Guàrdia Urbana, who are charged with managing prostitution, said they had identified 6,250 prostitutes who had been working the Raval streets since January 2009, according to the newspaper 20 Minutos.

“That’s a lie, it’s impossible,” said Clarisa Velocci of Genera, an organisation which works closely with, and defends the rights of prostitutes. “Do you know how many people six thousand are? That’s insane.”