On the rocks, divorce in Spain and domestic violence BY NICK SNELLING Spain now has one of the highest rates of divorce in Europe with 1 in 2.3 marriages ending in divorce.  This equates to a marital break-up every 3.7 minutes.  To make matters worse, Spain has a shocking domestic violence problem, which yet again came to a head when four women were killed by their partners on ‘Black Tuesday’ (26th February 2008).  This brought to 17, the number of women murdered by their partners by the end of February 2008 setting that year firmly on target to exceed the horrors of previous years.  Clearly, seismic changes are dangerously vibrating through Spanish society. In fact, it is not surprising that…

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Sex in Spain and the confessions of a call girl BY NICK SNELLING “Madre mia!” exclaims Michelle, roaring with laughter, “I have seen just about everything!” We are in a small anteroom within the Majestic brothel in Valencia city and I have just asked Michelle to tell me about her craziest experience.  She sits in front of me dressed in a decorative bikini top and tiny, denim shorts that emphasise her mind boggling figure.  I am having difficulty concentrating and I am fast wondering who is interviewing who.  Meanwhile, my old friend and back-up translator, Alberto, is clearly transfixed by Michelle’s super-enhanced cleavage.  Clearly, investigating the top end of prostitution in Spain is more challenging than I had thought. There…

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Hooked, drugs in Spain and the gateway to hell BY NICK SNELLING In 2006 Spain overtook the United States in having the highest per capita number of cocaine users in the world. In 2007 well over 2 ½  tons of cocaine was seized at Madrid’s Barajas airport alone and it has been estimated that 94% of all Euro notes circulating in Spain have traces of the drug.  In 2005 Spain accounted for half of all the seizures of cannabis resin in Europe and three quarters of the total amount seized.   Clearly, Spain is at the forefront of the European war against drugs. Unfortunately, according to the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction (EMCCDA), Spain has become the gateway…

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Marbella, the Godfather, a face lift and Mr Clean BY NICK SNELLING For property owners in Marbella the corruption and malfeasance of Marbella Town hall has been a nightmare of truly appalling proportions with an emotional cost difficult to calculate.  Some 600-700 properties risk being demolished whilst around 18,000 others are blighted by illegality.  Amazingly, one of the potentially richest towns in Spain is virtually bankrupt and has an infrastructure on the point of collapse.  The scandal of Marbella is a story that verges on the incredible. To some extent, it all began with the property crash of 1989.  Marbella was already notorious as a place where the jet-set rubbed shoulders with criminals and shady businessman.  For twenty years its…

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Clubbing Together, Brothels in Spain and Spanish Culture BY NICK SNELLING In 2003, Spain’s Institute of National Statistics (INE) showed that just over one in four Spanish men under the age of 49 had experienced sex with a prostitute – with one in fifteen having done so within the previous year.  This was backed up by Maribel Montano of the ruling PSOE party who claimed in 2007 that: ‘every day 1.5 million men pay for sex’ in Spain.  In fact, there are an estimated 300,000 prostitutes working in Spain possibly turning over around 40 billion Euros per year, which roughly equates to the country’s education budget.  For good reason, Spain is sometimes dubbed the ‘Brothel of Europe’. Certainly, the openness…

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AWAITING THE TEMPEST (Spain from dictatorship to democracy) Part 5 The aftermath… On the 20th November 1975 General Franco died in La Paz hospital, Madrid.  He was 82 and had long outlived Hitler, Mussolini and Stalin, his contemporary dictators.  He had also managed to die in bed surrounded by physicians, after a long life, something that he had so cruelly denied many Spaniards during his 36 years of power. Right to the end of his life, Franco remained in charge.  However, to some extent, his power had been diminished by the death of the one man who may have ensured the continuance of his regime.  This was Admiral Carrero Blanco, a hard line Francoist and member of the Opus Dei,…

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AWAITING THE TEMPEST (Spain from dictatorship to democracy) Part 4 Imagine it is the early 1970s and you are in Spain… Fiestas may not be emblematic of Spain but they do spring to some people’s minds when the country is mentioned.  They occur annually everywhere in Spain, in every town and village, last several days and take a bewildering multitude of forms, some of which are very bizarre.  However, most have a religious basis, and many can be profoundly moving. Interestingly, fiestas are not some artifice created by Franco or his tourist department.  Most fiestas date back into the mists of time and are usually highly ritualised events that celebrate the Catholic faith.  A fine example is the Easter (Semana…

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AWAITING THE TEMPEST Part 3 Imagine it is the early 1970s and you are in Spain… Needless to say, the building boom has had an extraordinary affect upon the demographics of Spain. In fact, since 1960, well over a million Spaniards have left the countryside for the towns and coast.  This has been encouraged by Franco after his adoption of conventional economics and his issue of the Stabilisation Plan of 1959.  This explicitly recognised that Spain could no longer remain an agricultural society (Franco’s natural instinct) and needed to expand into industry and tourism, if it was to evolve into a modern, successful state. However, for many Spaniards, particularly from rural areas, the tourist industry is a shock.  Indeed, this…

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