Belgian police believe that organised criminal gangs in Brussels are capitalising on the migrant crisis by renting out spaces around a city park for migrants to have “intimate time” with prostitutes.
The spaces, all around Brussels’ Maximilien Park, include local apartment storage rooms, toilets, and even tents that have been set up which are rented to the migrants for as little as 10 euros, Sudinfo reports.
Described as “intimate spaces”, they allow migrants to purchase the services of local street prostitutes, where they are offered sex from 20 to 25 euros a time.
A spokesman from the Belgian non-profit Union of Sex Workers Organised for Independence (Utsopi) said they were not surprised about the revelations, which came from an internal police report, saying: “It is increasingly difficult to find customers in Brussels for sex workers. Bars are closing and there are more and more inaccessible areas. Girls must find other ways to earn a living.”
Maximilien Park has become a hub for illegal migrants in recent years. Violence among asylum seekers and homeless Belgians has also become a growing problem that led to the stabbing of a police officer in the park in September. The officer was attacked while police were waking up migrants sleeping in the park.
Only days after the stabbing incident, 24 migrants were arrested with police claiming they had “caused a nuisance” in the area and just over a week later another nine migrants were arrested.
Last year, reports claimed that as many as 600 migrants were living in the park and locals feared the area was becoming another dangerous makeshift camp akin to the Calais Jungle that was demolished in neighbouring France. Most of the migrants were believed to have originally come from Eritrea and Sudan.