After clearing prostitutes from its streets, Verona is planning the country's first crack-down on sex workers who operate in private apartments, Mayor Flavio Tosi said Monday. The right-wing Northern League mayor said residents will be asked to report people causing ''disturbances'' in their apartment blocks, who will then be slapped with a heavy fine.
Under current Italian law only the exploitation of prostitution - pimping - is illegal in Italy, but city mayors combat the phenomenon through the use of fines, often via traffic or public decency laws.
Verona and Padua were the first Italian cities to introduce an experimental scheme in cracking down on clients and introducing fines of 50 euros, which resulted in prostitutes demonstrating against the measure in the streets and offering anyone slapped with a fine a ''free service''.
Last summer the two cities also led the way in introducing more effective fines of euros for clients caught with streetwalkers, thanks to greater powers given to city mayors as part of the centre-right government's emergency security decree. Although the maxi-fines have helped clear city streets across the country, Tosi stressed that mayors' powers are still limited.
Rita Sanlorenzo, secretary of a magistrate's organisation, expressed concerns over Tosi's plans to fine prostitutes working in private houses, meanwhile. The government is currently mulling plans to criminalise street prostitution, and in September the cabinet gave a first green light to a new bill.
