Spaniards Decidedly Favour Regularizing Prostitution
October 17, 2009
(Angus Reid Global Monitor) - A large majority of people in Spain back a proposal that would make prostitution a regular occupation, according to a poll by Instituto Noxa published in La Vanguardia. 76 per cent of respondents support regularizing prostitution, while 17 per cent oppose it.
While prostitution in Spain is not illegal, owning or running a brothel has been illegal since 1956.
The Republican Left of Catalonia (ERC)—a Catalan nationalist party—is proposing that prostitution be regularized across Spain, in order to offer protection to voluntary sex workers and combat illicit human trafficking organizations. The ERC has also put forward a bill that would ban all ads selling prostitution in print publications. ERC lawmaker Joan Tardà has called the ads "disgusting" and said that they "denigrate women."
Last month, Tardà declared: "Regulating is the only way to guarantee social and labour rights to the people that practice it [prostitution], bring them back from the fringes. (…) It will also make it easier to track crime associated with it."
Polling Data
Would you support or oppose regularizing prostitution?
Support: 76%
Oppose: 17%
This is pretty disappointing but then to many people the arguments put forward by those who support regulation appear to be common sense arguments, especially if they buy into the view that prostitution is natural or inevitable and lack awareness of the progress that has been achieved in the Nordic countries. I've also read that attitudes towards the sex industry in Spain have been influenced by the past legacy of dictatorship and sexual repression with anything to do with sex now being seen as inherently positive, liberating and anti-authoritarian.
This is an interesting article which was originally in a Swedish publication and discusses the campaign for legalisation in Spain:
http://www. thefword.org.uk/features/2008/03/how_to_get_an_a_1