With the smell of mothballs and placing us within the European context closer to Poland with its anti-feminist and anti-lgtbi legislation, than to the countries that are at the forefront of the defense of human rights, Barcala with Ciudadanos and the extreme right, are launched in iron towards the beginning of a historical error, of a stain for the reputation and the image of Alacant.
The euphemistically called Ordinance of Civic Coexistence, better known as shame or directly as a persecutor of people who practice begging and prostitution, promotes a more insecure city first for women and those who live on the streets, but also for part of the LGTBI collective, migrant groups and the group of neighbors, with special focus on those who suffer greater vulnerability. Ignoring the Inclusion Plan and the 2030 Agenda, the ordinance made from and for punitivism, unequivocally lays its foundations on the most conservative ideological puritanism.
A puritanism that makes the norm with the wink of the ultra bench, imposing its morality on society as a whole and pushing public personnel such as the local police to subjectivity and arbitrariness, the civil service having the enormous responsibility of discerning between what they are, for example, punishable sexual behaviors or when coercive begging is being carried out or not. Do you want to turn the right to Alicante citizenship into a kind of spy of decency that warns “the forces of order and the law” to fine what each considers as not exemplary? Does Barcala dream of its own law of vagrants and thugs?
For United We Can – EUPV this ordinance is plagued with serious errors in the processing. An example: In the process until the initial approval prior to the plenary session that took place in the embarrassing Presidential Commission last November, the Popular Party and Citizens could have breached Law 9/2003 as indicated in the technical reports themselves , of April 2 of the Valencian Community that establishes that for normative projects the gender impact report will be incorporated from the beginning. Something that however they deliberately decided to ignore when requesting it once it was finished, in a clear contempt not only for the staff of the Department of Equality that has been constantly separated and unauthorized, but also towards its person in charge, the mayor María Conejero. Nothing is known about Acción Social and Julia Llopis.
Also lack of participation, consultation and transparency. Another example: The Law of Administrative Procedure, as pointed out in the Equality report about the aforementioned ordinance, regulates prior consultation and contemplates the hearing of the people whose interests are affected as well as the organizations that protect them. And that has not happened because the objective of the regulation is not to help or cooperate, it is to hide poverty and prostitution in the inordinate desire of Barcala and Vox to hide what basically bothers them and they do not like under urban carpets, that in Alacant take the form of industrial estates, private flats, brothels, supposed massage rooms – with a happy ending… for whom? – or directly brothels with very powerful and visible light like the one on Avenida de Dénia. Something that will lead vulnerable women, precarious and exploited by the mafias to move to those places, more discreet, yes, but above all much more insecure. And there their lives and their bodies will be in even greater danger.
This norm, thought from the most primary machismo and fear of the poor, will only be possible and viable if it is counted as it should have been done from the first moment with the social movements. United We Can – EUPV will propose a commission with political and social representation that will work on the ordinance from the model of the FEMP and the Equality report. It is essential to give voice and decision-making capacity to the entities that attend and know women victims of prostitution and trafficking, people living on the streets, the LGTBI group and migrant groups. And at that table, the role of the representation of the District Boards is also fundamental, once again ignored, that they help to draw conclusions that must be approached and valued in the organs of social participation: Equality Council – convened once throughout the mandate-, Immigration Council -without being constituted- and Social Council.
Without deploying a true consultation process, the shame ordinance will be doomed to failure and we warn: It will not improve, as sirens sing, with a coat of paint in the form of orange allegations in injury time. The bipartite municipal government still has time to promote spaces for dialogue, as necessary and essential as ever, that dignify the city and raise its democratic quality. In them they will find us with outstretched hands.
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Eddie is an Australian news reporter with over 9 years in the industry and has published on Forbes and tech crunch.