Italian government to ban prostitution in public places

London, Nov 6 (ANI): Mara Carfagna, the Italian equal opportunities minister said that the government would soon introduce measures to prostitution in public places.

Silvio Berlusconi's government "has reached a further milestone", declared his party's equal opportunities spokeswoman, Barbara Saltamartini.

Carfagna told the website Clandestinoweb a package of security measures that will now go to parliament included a ban on prostitution in all public places, reports The Guardian.

"The aim is to cut off the oxygen to criminal organisations that profit from the bodies of women who are often very young and, in the overwhelming majority of cases, foreign," she said.

Just last week, three associates of the prime minister were formally under investigation on suspicion of profiting from prostitution.

A former prostitute who has also given a statement to prosecutors said, however, that she had twice provided sexual services for Berlusconi at 5,000 euros a time.

Opposition critics noted the measures would apply only to prostitutes working on the streets.

"If it weren't so terribly serious, you'd die laughing," said Senator Donatella Poretti of the Italian Radicals. (ANI)