At least twenty former ‘women of the street’ have been given a helping hand to get into the mainstream job market thanks to high-street bank La Caixa’s charitable arm, Obra Social. These ex-prostitutes all have children and have decided to give up ‘the game’, having spent years selling their bodies in order to feed themselves and their families.

Now members of the Asociación de Mujeres de la Noche – literally, ‘women of the night association’ – which is now working with La Caixa to take women off the street and reintegrate them into society – the former sex-workers are undergoing psychological workshops. These teach them self-esteem, assertiveness, self-defence and the skills required to attend a job interview. Later, they will be given professional training to help them find legal work.

La Caixa reveals that these women – often non-EU immigrants, frequently without legal residence rights and usually impoverished, exploited and struggling to feed their children single-handedly – “have been fighting for years to get out of this seedy underworld.”

Many work for pimps and live in fear of violent treatment, having been lured over to Spain with promises of lucrative work in the hotel and catering industry. Others fell into the trade as they had no other way of making a living. La Caixa’s Obra Social fund has set aside 14,000 euros to help these women.

The charity has invested millions of euros since its creation in helping the marginalised to reintegrate in society and the job market. Recluses, drug-addicts, ethnic minorities, AIDS and HIV patients, the elderly, disabled and seriously ill have all benefited from La Caixa’s Obra Social.

In 2006, some 18 million people were helped by the organisation, which invested a total of 400 million euros nation wide in social programmes.