The Big Issue – Immigration in Spain BY NICK SNELLING Between 1998 and 2007 Spain’s population rose by an astonishing 14%. Furthermore, immigrants, according to the Instituto Nacional de Estadistica (INE), now account for 9.9% of the population as of January 2007.  More worrying for the Spanish is the sheer speed in which mass immigration has occurred.  In 2000 there were 900,000 registered foreigners in Spain, but by 2007 this had risen to 4.4 million – a threefold increase that places Spain second only to the US in the world league for net immigration. Of course, Spanish government figures on immigration are very conservative, as they are based only upon properly registered foreigners.  Accordingly, they do not take into account the potentially huge numbers of unregistered immigrants residing in the country.  As a consequence, some commentators suspect the proportion of immigrants in Spain may be closer to 12-15% of the…

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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 tremendous pressures have been placed upon the old-fashioned, family values normally associated with Spain.  Suppressed by the long, deeply conservative dictatorship of Franco (1939 – 1975), Spain remained in a…

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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 is certainly something surreal about sitting in a brothel, calmly and openly interviewing a prostitute, having just been shown around the premises by the manager – whose explanation of the…

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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 for drugs to enter Europe.  An impossible to protect, 3,000 km coastline has made Spain vulnerable and a gift to determined smugglers, with Galicia’s rugged coastline nicknamed the ‘Sicily of…

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