Red-light district idea lit up

ROME – Rome’s top security official suggested that the city needs a red-light district to keep prostitutes off the streets, saying in an interview published Saturday that citizens complain daily about prostitutes working the streets of the Italian capital.

Rome’s mayor and other politicians immediately criticized the statement from Rome Prefect Achille Serra.

In Saturday’s editions of the Rome daily La Repubblica, Serra suggested a district like those in Hamburg and Amsterdam “where one can exercise the world’s oldest profession without disturbing the citizens.”

“In Italy, prostitution is not a crime, but this doesn’t mean that you must continue to make believe (the problem) isn’t there,” Serra was quoted as saying.

Prostitution is not illegal in Italy, but pimping is, and police have been cracking down on prostitution rackets they say exploit illegal immigrants, including many from eastern Europe and Africa.

Rome Mayor Walter Veltroni stressed that he respected Serra for wanting to deal with “a grave problem.” “But the idea of a red-light district is a mistaken answer to a real problem,” he said in a statement, urging more such crackdowns.

Giulio Albanese, an Italian missionary priest whose Comboni order works in Africa, called red-light proposals “simply sad. Beyond – this is understood – being immoral.”

In response to the criticism, Serra was quoted by the Italian news agency ANSA as saying that approaches by other European cities at least deserve consideration.

Italy had legal brothels until 1958, when they were closed and prostitutes took to the streets. There are an estimated tens of thousands of prostitutes in Italy. In Rome, among the streets where they are visible are a stretch near the Foreign Ministry and roads leading to a seaside suburb where many families go to picnic.

Proposals to legalize brothels again have foundered.