Spain is set to ban prostitution

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez wants prostitution eliminated from Spain. Or at least outlawed in the European country with a penalty of up to 4 years in prison for anyone caught paying for sex. This would make Spain the first country in the EU to ban the sale of sexual services in modern times.

If Spain does outlaw prostitution the country would join France, Ireland, Croatia and Sweden as the only EU countries where people can be arrested for paying for sex. Croatia outlaws the sex trade completely. While Ireland and France follow the infamous “Nordic Model” of Sweden. There customers and pimps can be arrested but women selling sex cannot.

In reality prostitution bans rarely end prostitution. In many cases they don’t even curtail it. Just ask anyone in Vietnam.

As The Journal reported a year after Ireland outlaws the purchase of sex “Buying sex has been illegal in Ireland for one year but ‘very little’ has changed”.

Proponents of these laws say things like there simply aren’t enough people being arrested. In contrast, groups of people actually involved in the industry like the Sex Workers Association of Ireland (SWAI) say that these laws put sex workers in increased danger.

Selling sex in Spain

Of course nobody expects the Spanish inquisition. But few expected Spain to actually attempt a prostitution ban either.

Sure Señor Sanchez has promised to ban prostitution in the past. Just over a year ago he proclaimed “We will advance by abolishing prostitution, which enslaves women”. Yet Spain has been a rather permissive for years.

Selling sex has been legal in Spain since anti-prostitution laws were repealed in 1995. This has allowed Spain to become sensationally known as “the brothel of Europe”. There are now an estimated 300,000 prostitutes in Spain generating a whopping $26,500,000 USD annually. Many other activities are also permitted in Spain despite being outlawed in much of the rest of the world.

So we may end up with a Spain where it’s legal to use drugs, change genders, or help a person commit suicide, but not pay for sexual services.

What is the response?

There has been quite an uproar about the Spanish prostitution ban in some associated circles. And even some mainstream news coverage. But generally speaking finding out what is really on in Spain requires a bit of deeper research.

The Support Committee for Sex Workers (CATS) in Spain has published a manifesto calling on the prostitution ban to be rejected. In it, CATS calls on the government to respect the decisions of sex workers to “do what they want to do and how or with whom they want to establish trade agreements”. CATS and others also held a protest in September.

Yet others appear to have given in. Or maybe they simply see the writing on the wall. For example the large Spanish website Pasion.com has gone completely offline after Spain banned advertisements by prostitutes. Not long ago the site listed hundreds of new sex worker advertisements each and every day.

Yet it didn’t take long for that void to be filled. The website Scompi.com was formed in the middle of this year. Scompi is focused around sex workers in Spain just as Pasion was. But the difference is that Scompi is hosted in Bulgaria, an EU country where prostitution is legal.

I am not a lawyer or legal expert of any kind. But if Spain follows the so-called Nordic model it seems there will be little risk for sex workers in Spain to continue operating even if they openly advertise on a site like Scompi. Since it won’t be illegal to sell sex they theoretically wouldn’t have anything to worry about by running ads for their services or providing sex for money.

Since Scompi is based in Bulgaria where prostitution is legal they may not run into any problems either. Sure they are a part of the EU along with Spain. But I don’t think Spanish courts have jurisdiction over computer servers in Bulgaria. I guess Spain could complain to the EU. But again prostitution is not illegal in the majority of EU countries. In fact Belgium just decriminalized prostitution earlier this year.

What will come of this? I can’t be sure. The results will depend on a combination of time and the forces on either side of the question. But I can be relatively certainly of two things. Porn will never die and prostitution won’t either. Just as long as we live in a society based around the exchange of money for goods and services.