Up to 90% of women who work in prostitution in Spain could be victims of human trafficking, according to The Guardian. Prostitution was decriminalized in Spain in 1995, and supporters of this decision argue that this has made life safer for women who engage in sex work. However, prostitution in Spain is tightly linked to human trafficking and smuggling. Ensuring the security of women who are victims of this violence is challenging due to the trapping physical and psychological trauma they have to endure. In the case of Spain, the decriminalization of sex has not proven to be an effective solution. In order to promote the safety of women who have reached Spain as victims of human smuggling and are further exploited by being forced by their traffickers to sell their bodies, the buying of sex should be criminalized.
Main concepts and why they matter
Much has been written about prostitution, sex work and human trafficking. It is important to understand the nuances between these concepts because they lead to very different interpretations of reality. First and foremost, human trafficking does not, in any case, involve the unabided consent of the victim. It is always forced and it always leads to exploitation. Sexual slavery is a type of human trafficking that has been defined as the “status of a person over whom any or all of the powers attaching to the right of ownership are exercised, including sexual access through rape or other forms of sexual violence.” Sexual slavery, thus, also includes the stripping of an individual’s rights without their consent.
Conversely, the Supreme Court of Canada defines prostitution as “the exchange of sexual services of one person in return for a payment by another”, in which case there is no implied threat or implication of force; both parties have consented to engage in sexual activity. The term sex work was coined in the 1970s by women who sold sexual services trying to shift the focus from the activity to the rights of the women who engaged in this industry. This change in the rhetoric involving the transaction of sex was intended as a move to ensure that women’s rights were fulfilled, and it also came at the same time as a push towards decriminalization and legalization of prostitution, or sex work.
Decriminalization, legalization or abolition
Prostitution is criminalized when it is prohibited to be a sex worker, a client or connected to the sex industry for any kind of profit. To decriminalize sex work would mean to remove criminal penalties for sex work for everyone – no matter whether you are selling, buying sex or profiting from the industry. When sex work is legalized, there are rules that control the industry by issuing work permits, licensing or by tolerating zones. This is usually done so that workers can receive the same protections and recognition as workers as other occupations.
The abolitionist perspective in this field argues that prostitution is “inherently abusive, and a cause and a consequence of women’s inequality”, and as such, it should be eradicated by criminalizing the buying of sex and assisting women in exiting the industry. Governments around the world have not adopted this perspective when deciding if they will regulate prostitution, and consequently some countries have opted for legalizing sex work, arguing that it would lead to the better protection of women. The situation in the Netherlands suggests that this approach has been ineffective: two thirds of the prostitutes are illegal and unregistered, and thus left with no protection. This model, followed also by Ireland, has shown to only benefit the owners of the industry, and has actually led to a spike in sex trafficking. Hence, proposals based in abolitionist perspectives should be implemented in order to stop the abuses of power in the industry of the selling of sex.
Who falls victim to sexual trafficking? Why Spain?
Most of the women enslaved in the sex trade in Spain are West African, Romanian, Chinese, or South American, according to El País. They are tricked into coming to Spain through common scams. Women are seduced, usually by young men, into believing that a much better life is possible if they follow them. These women usually come from low socioeconomic backgrounds and usually don’t have fixed jobs or bright futures. These men offer them jobs in waitressing or modelling in exchange for a part of their future earnings, which they agree to. In some countries, specific strategies are followed, such as the use of lovers to attract women in Romania or the use of a magical ritual and voodoo in Nigeria to seal the deal. However, when they reach Spain, they are not taken into restaurants or modelling agencies, but to brothels, where they are sold to the traffickers. Because they usually don’t speak the local language and their passports are usually taken from them as a safeguard of their loyalty, most of them are afraid to contact law enforcement and explain their situation.
Source: El País
The human trafficking industry is well-established, and Spain is an especially important global hub. Sex traffickers bring their victims to Spain via air, land and boat. Important criminal networks, such as those in Nigeria, recruit victims from places like migrant reception centers, and then they send them to Spain for sex slavery because it is very lucrative, with little risk: it is very easy to trick women into giving them very big amounts of money in exchange for a promise, which has no costs. A 2015 Havocscope Report estimated that revenue from sex trade could rise to $25.5bn a year, exemplifying the extent to which the industry can be especially lucrative. Rocío Mora, director of the NGO named APRAMP (Association for the Prevention, Reinsertion and Aid to the Prostituted Woman) which fights for the rights of women who are prostitutes and/or being trafficked, explains that “According to the UN, Spain takes third place when it comes to demand for prostitutes, after Thailand and Puerto Rico. Demand is the key.” Moreover, the demand from sex buyers, which used to be concentrated in older men sneaking away from their families, is getting younger – nearly 40% of Spanish men over the age of 18 had paid for sex at least once in their life.
What has been done so far and what can be done for the future
Spain made human trafficking a criminal offense for the first time in 2010 through the modification of their Penal Code. In 2015, this law was further tightened, and authorities adopted the approach of uniting security forces, prosecutors, judges and NGOs to nail the trafficking rings together. After this development, which came so long after the decriminalization of prostitution, most of these actors have recommended that, due to the connection of sex trafficking and prostitution, the latter should be banned. APRAMP is an NGO that works to give the rights and dignity back to women who have been victims of trafficking and prostitution. According to APRAMP, most women who engage in sex work, victims of trafficking or not, are suffering from exploitation, are vulnerable and would choose other ways to earn a living if given the resources.
In order to eradicate the exploitation inherent in trafficking and sex work, important measures need to be taken – and simply decriminalizing prostitution is not enough, and neither is legalization, since the welfare of women cannot be ensured through a lenient legal framework. It is key to provide women with educational resources, such as language courses for non-Spanish speakers and labor force integration courses, such as job training, which should be provided by the regional government. In addition, safety to access healthcare is already available in Spain, but psychological resources are scarce and access to mental healthcare is either slow or costly. The support of NGOs financed by governmental offices, such as APRAMP, which are already focusing on these efforts at reintegration in society, are key. Beyond the provision of these resources, the most important measure to stop this type of exploitation is the criminalization of not only traffickers and smugglers, but of owners of the sex industry and buyers of sex in the Spanish Penal Code. The criminal organizations that shape sexual slavery in Spain still function because there has been no efficient effort to disband them due to the lack of legal codification to do so.
In conclusion, measures that protect women and criminalize their traffickers and exploiters are the answer to tackling the issue of sexual slavery stemming from human trafficking in Spain. Human trafficking endangers the security and integrity of vulnerable collectives around the world, especially women and children. It is a contemporary problem for which there is no easy solution, and the profits from this industry are on the rise. Examining global trafficking hubs such as Spain is necessary to understand the origin, content and ramifications of the problem, and to find solutions to end it.