Maebh Springbett
On 17 October, the Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, concluded a three-day congress held in Valencia for the Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party (PSOE) by vowing to outlaw prostitution, claiming the practice ‘enslaves’ women.
Prostitution was decriminalised in Spain in 1995, however, whereas there is no punishment for sex work unless it takes place in a public space, pimping or acting as a proxy between a sex worker and a potential client remains illegal. In spite of this in 2011 the UN deemed Spain the third largest centre for prostitution globally after Thailand and Puerto Rico. The organisation estimated in 2016 that the country’s sex industry is worth €3.7 billion. A 2009 survey also revealed that 1 in 3 Spanish men had paid for sex.
This is not the first time Sánchez, Spanish PM since 2018, has proposed the criminalisation of sex work. The PSOE released a manifesto in 2019 aiming to win over more female voters which outlined their stance against prostitution. This described the practice as ‘one of the cruellest aspects of the feminisation of poverty and one of the worst forms of violence against women’. Since then, the PM has failed to table any legislation to be considered in Parliament and there remains an estimated 300,000 women currently working in the sex industry.
‘Prostitution is not an expression of women’s sexual freedom’
Women’s Safety
Sánchez’s statement has brought issues surrounding the sex industry’s legal status and the safety of the women involved, to the forefront of political debate. There are those, like the PM, who consider sex work to be a form of exploitation and who primarily express concern for the high levels of sex trafficking in the country. It was reported that the Spanish police freed around 896 women from being exploited in 2019 alone, and estimates say that over 80 percent of those employed in sex work are victims of sex trafficking by international mafias. APRAMP (Association for the Prevention, Reintegration and Assistance of Prostituted Women), an organisation campaigning to eradicate prostitution and sexual exploitation, believes that ‘Prostitution is not an expression of women’s sexual freedom. It is almost always linked to violence, marginalisation, economic difficulties and a sexist, patriarchal culture.’
‘If you throw people engaged in prostitution out of the establishments and flats where they work, then they’re going to end up on the street’
Impacts
On the other hand, it is widely considered that outlawing prostitution would be a mistake. By making sex work illegal the industry will not disappear but rather it will be pushed further underground and the safety of the women it employs will be critically compromised.
Nacho Pardo, a spokesman for the Spanish charity CATS (Committee to Support Sex Workers) who provide support for sex workers in the south-east and call for prostitution to be recognised as a legitimate economic activity, explained ‘If you throw people engaged in prostitution out of the establishments and flats where they work, then they’re going to end up on the street’. Similarly, campaigners highlight the fact that the government’s indecision on the legality of prostitution is in part what fuels the demand for trafficking women.
Whether Sánchez will be able to pass legislation affecting this change is still unclear, but the decision will greatly impact the lives and safety of numerous women.
Featured image courtesy of Daniel Prado from Unsplash. Image license found here. No changes were made to this image.
Maebh Springbett
While Head of Entertainment for Empoword Journalism, Maebh works in the Careers department at the University of Reading. Their writing focuses on music and has been published by the likes of Music Is To Blame and Dead Good Music. They aspire to work in non-fiction publishing.