The
festival of San Fermin in the small Spanish city of Pamplona attracts over a
million revellers each year and is famous for the ‘running of the bulls’. The
event has been marred by numerous reports of sexual harassment, abuse and rape
in recent years, including the gang rape of a 19 year old girl by a group of
five men in 2016. In this article for feminicidio.net Amelia Tiganus reveals
the dark side of the fiesta that has
become normalised by the patriarchal state – the massive demand for
prostitution by the male festival goers. Amelia, herself a survivor of sex trafficking,
invites us to imagine the unimaginable as she describes the hellish conditions
in the brothels of San Fermin.
"San Fermodels" - A flyer advertising a brothel distributed at the festival
“Working” as
a prostitute in one of Pamplona’s brothels during the festival of San Fermin is
one of the most traumatic and punishing ordeals that a female body could
possibly undergo. This is how it works; it happens to women because they are
women, just as it does in Amsterdam, Cali and Bangkok, if not every city in the
world.
In
prostitution the women do not have a choice. They are forced to accept the
rules of the game as dictated by the pimps – often disguised as legitimate
businessmen working in the leisure industry in Spain - and the male buyers. The
alliance between pimp and punter is one of the strongest and most loyal in the
patriarchy and the two roles have a common purpose: to uphold male dominance
and masculinity. This explains their need to create spaces where men can go to objectify,
subordinate, humiliate, use and torture women, all under the protection of the
pimp state. The existence of brothels is the clearest sign that the patriarchy
is unwilling to allow women equality. While brothels exist, there will always
be a space reserved where masculinity can dominate. A place where male citizens
can exploit and then dispose of women, facilitated by the state, the law, the judges,
the police, the political parties, the religions and an indifferent society.
So, let’s start
by trying to imagine the scene inside a brothel during the festival of San
Fermin; hundreds of women are trafficked to the small city in Navarra
especially for the fiesta and packed into
the brothels like battery hens, sometimes four or five to a room. During the
day they are locked in and they sleep in the same small, asphyxiating rooms
where dozens of men will pass later that night. Meanwhile, outside the brothel
walls, the bulls are also being imprisoned, tortured and killed by groups of
men in an age-old ritual. Packs of men who kill for the sake of it, because
they are given the licence to use and enjoy violence by the patriarchy.
These groups
of men practice what Argentine-Brazilian anthropologist Rita Segato calls “the
pedagogy of cruelty”. Namely, a strategy of habitual cruelty for the purpose of
numbing us to its effects.
Imagine
what this pedagogy of cruelty does to women’s bodies in the brothels of Pamplona.
Now, imagine that this happens because society permits it and that the state
finances and defends it in the name of tradition. A patriarchal, and therefore
untouchable, tradition.
The last
women to arrive at the festival’s brothels have to sleep on mattresses on the
floor due to the lack of beds. They have to pay to use the rooms, which cost
more than half of their earnings. Many pimps openly admit “you have to charge them
for everything they do inside the club. Bed, food, clothes, jewellery, perfume,
cocaine...”
Imagine
that the day begins at five in the afternoon, when the women leave their rooms
and wait in the bar for the men to arrive. There isn’t much demand during the afternoon.
The great influx begins at nightfall. Groups of drunken men invade the brothels
dressed in their traditional white suits and red scarves. They keep arriving well
into the next morning. Men of all ages and nationalities. The taxi drivers receive
a commission from the brothel owners for every group of men they bring. They
come emboldened and soaked in sweat from the festivities. Most of them ask for
group sex and they usually get what they want. The more ‘services’ that are on
offer, the bigger the takings for the pimps.
The close
confinement of the women becomes starkly apparent as the brothel corridors
become inundated by long queues of men. It is very common to see groups of men
lining up to be serviced in brothels but during the festival of San Fermin this
group behaviour becomes even more pronounced. Once inside the room the groups celebrate
their patriarchal brotherhood with rough, violent sex and what can only be
described as torture, usually inflicted up on a single woman. The loud music
and stench of tobacco and alcohol in the room is unbearable. Can you imagine the scene?
 |
| "2 Bulls plus 125 girls" - A flyer distributed at the festival |
Afterwards,
in the late hours of the morning, the women are left to bear the solitude and
try to recuperate, only to repeat it all over again in the evening. Try to imagine a term or
phrase that could define what happens to women in these conditions. What name
would you give it?
Is it any wonder
that some of us consider the brothel to be a concentration camp, constructed exclusively
for women? A space where groups of men can return to, time and time again, until
they erase every last trace of humanity from the women.
Now, could you
imagine if all of this was legal? Well...it is.
The council
of Pamplona has produced a guide especially for the festival: “for a fiesta
free of sexual abuse and harassment”. In this pamphlet they define male
violence as “a form of violence based on hierarchical relationships, on
relationships of power that place men above women, which aims to ensure that
women take a submissive role in life”.
Where does
my story fit in with this public prevention campaign?
 |
| Advertisements for sexual services in the local newspaper during San Fermin |
Can you
imagine advertisements for sexual services filling entire pages in the local newspaper
during the festival, in plain view of children? Well...they do. The most
important regional newspaper Noticias de Navarra directly benefits from sexual
exploitation through this advertising revenue.
What cannot
be imagined is the horror that the women experience in these brothels. Only
women who are poor, migrant, racialised and sexually exploited by colonialism
and prostitution know how it feels. It happens to women because they are
women. That unimaginable horror is unleashed each day during the festival of
San Fermin, where groups of men come every year in their thousands to revel in their patriarchal
rituals.
Amelia Tiganus -- Feminicidio.net --
08/07/2017
 |
| Amelia Tiganus - prostitution survivor and feminist activist |
Translation
by Ben Riddick
Original
article in Spanish here
No comments:
Post a Comment