In this photo: a German prostitute - photo by Julica da Costa
Police in Florence raided a garage near the city’s Vittoria Bridge on Monday afternoon after rumours that it was housing a brothel had reached them, reports ANSA. There they found three women, several clients, pornographic films and a stock of condoms and sex aids.

The women, though, were not “stereotypical” prostitutes but a “madam” in her sixties who had been trying to survive and see her son through university on a pension of 242 euros a month, her 37-year-old unemployed friend and another friend in her sixties. They had been plying their secret trade in a back room on Monday to Saturday afternoons between 15.30 and 18.30 for several months, charging their clients – all elderly men - at least 50 euros per “appointment”. The brothel keeper took a commission of 10 euros on each of these assignations but also “worked” herself.

Clients got to know about the activity through adverts placed in a local paper but also by word of mouth.

Prostitution is not illegal in Italy but it is a crime to organise or profit from prostitution. Therefore the brothel keeper was arrested for profiting from immoral earnings.

Do you think the women became prostitutes because they were desperate?

Should prostitution be made illegal in Italy?