The Minister of Equality, Ana Redondo, who participated this week at the UN headquarters in the work of the Commission on the Legal and Social Status of Women, spoke in an appearance before the press about the proposed law of the PSOE to abolish prostitution and on the trafficking law, both in the initial phase. Redondo has pointed out that the bill, which “in no case will penalize people who are in a situation of prostitution,” will be presented in the Congress of Deputies “in the coming days,” he said, “I believe that the next week”. The proposal has three fundamental elements, which will be added, if the text is approved, to article 187 of the Penal Code to criminally expand pimping and lucrative activities around spaces where prostitution takes place.
“The first element is to expand the criminal offense of pimping, an extension of article 187 of the Penal Code, pimping being understood as any action linked to or that encourages or promotes prostitution,” explained the head of Equality. Secondly, “a second term is incorporated into article 187, to penalize the third-party lease (profit obtained by the person or company that provides a place in which it is carried out) to all those people who profit from the transfer of spaces or the making spaces available for the practice of prostitution. And thirdly, it penalizes anyone who agrees to carry out acts of prostitution to profit systematically.” These three elements, once incorporated into 187 of the Penal Code if the law is approved, “will prevent and greatly hinder prostitution” without resulting in any penalty for the people who practice it.
Regarding the effect that the abolition of prostitution could have on the feminist movement, divided into two major currents – one of them clearly abolitionist – and whether it could further exacerbate the differences between the two, the Minister of Equality recalled that the initiative is in its initial phase and that “the parliamentary process will allow a dialogue with society. It is true that there are times when situations or positions are more complex and more difficult to approach, but I do not renounce that dialogue and try to move forward together knowing that we govern for the majority. And I am convinced that Spanish society is broadly in favor of abolishing prostitution.” Redondo has stressed that the early stage of the initiative implies “time, dialogues and debates.” “But I hope and trust that the feminist movement, which has been nourished by different sensitivities, will manage to join this debate and, therefore, join forces and will.”
With respect to the trafficking law, “we are also in the first round, at an initiatory moment of the law, which we have brought to the Council of Ministers,” so the next step is to “also open the debate to society in in general, and to the society that is interested in these issues” specifically. “It also needs the favorable report of the General Council of the Judiciary, the favorable report of the Council of State and the Fiscal Council. I mean, we are in a moment of political momentum, but it also needs the filming and assessment of different institutions that have a lot to do with it and that will probably direct us to solutions consistent with the legal system as a whole. Redondo has defined the trafficking bill as “ambitious and that resolves or provides solutions and alternatives to people in a situation of trafficking, most of them immigrants”, which implies, he stressed, the harmonization of the processing processes of the permit to stay and work while their condition as victims of trafficking is resolved.
Redondo has highlighted the collaboration “with institutions and, above all, with civil society, a working group is already being organized with all Third Sector entities that work with people in situations of trafficking” to specify the law with observations for, For example, determining how these trafficked persons are incorporated and integrated into society and the labor market.
Redondo also highlighted the image of Spain as an international reference when it comes to incorporating the feminist agenda into the global agenda “and doing so in a transversal way, in which all policies are policies of equality, each one aimed in some way at overcoming the differences, inequalities, and to generate real equality of opportunities.” He also highlighted the synergy between Spain and Latin American countries when it comes to promoting the so-called care economy. When it comes to promoting equality, and ensuring that inequality does not impede the development of women, “it is not only about breaking glass ceilings, but also about cleaning sticky floors,” she said graphically about this issue, which is mostly in female hands. , but also subject of a “global strategy in Latin America and the Caribbean to build a true care policy.”