Greece’s Prostitutes Face Olympic Hurdles

Greek prostitutes Friday protested a decision by the government to back away from compromise legislation that would have eased the operation of brothels here ahead of next summer’s Olympic Games.

Prostitutes, whose profession is legal and licensed in Greece, said they were being unfairly penalized by authorities who apparently wanted to sweep their activities under the carpet as part of a wider cleanup.

“We are the oldest profession, and they can’t make us disappear,” said Dimitra Kanellopoulou, president of the 7,000-member Movement of Prostitutes of Greece. She was speaking at a news conference at the headquarters of the organization, a kind of trade union that has operated for 22 years.

The trouble for Greece’s sex workers began this summer, when Athens Mayor Dora Bakoyannis decided to enforce a 4-year-old law requiring brothels to be separated from schools, churches and playgrounds by at least 200 yards. To underscore her point, the mayor shut down several establishments deemed to be in violation of the law.

Outraged prostitutes went on strike. Under existing law, about 200 brothels were authorized to operate in Athens, but about 600 had in fact sprung up.

The workers argue that licensing and facilitating their activity discourages illicit prostitution by thousands of women who are smuggled into Greece from Moldova, Albania and other nations.

For the last several months, the prostitutes union and the government have held negotiations. They agreed to a compromise bill that would cut the distance the brothels had to maintain from certain properties, remove requirements that prostitutes be single and establish other rules that facilitate the brothels’ activities.

Then Parliament Speaker Apostolos Kaklamanis abruptly announced Thursday that the compromise bill was being shelved indefinitely, with the blessing of Prime Minister Costas Simitis.

The prostitutes, and a few officials, were stunned.

A spokesman for Bakoyannis confirmed the government’s decision and said federal officials had essentially decided to leave the matter in limbo until after elections in the spring.

Kanellopoulou, speaking to The Times after the news conference, said she was baffled at the turnaround. Dressed in scarlet velour with blond hair streaked in royal blue and fuchsia, she said she believed feminist organizations opposed to prostitution were behind the decision.

The prostitutes said that leaving their profession legal, but putting up obstacles to its practice, was the epitome of hypocrisy.

“I pay a lot of taxes. I pay a lot of insurance. I demand to be treated fairly under the law,” said another woman at the news conference, Eliza Kolovou, who identified herself as the prostitutes association’s liaison to the European Union.

An estimated 17,000 foreign women are trafficked into Greece annually and forced into illicit prostitution, according to human rights advocates, several of whom appeared Friday at the news conference. The rights activists also argued that licensing prostitutes was a way to combat trafficking. Unlike their illicit counterparts, Greece’s licensed sex workers are registered, undergo regular medical checks, pay taxes and receive social security benefits.

Kanellopoulou noted that some brothels are in high-rent districts that authorities may want to put to more profitable use.

She professed ignorance at suggestions that the 2004 Summer Olympics, which will be held in Athens in August, represented a time when more, not fewer, prostitutes were needed.

“I don’t know,” she said. “We’ve never done this [the Olympics] before.”