Podemos will vote in Congress in favor of taking into consideration the PSOE law to abolish prostitution, but calls on its coalition partner to debate in depth the content of the law, with a view to achieving a broad consensus. In this way, the plenary session of Congress will approve the taking into consideration of the law because the PP already announced a week ago that it will support this process.
For its part, the commons, the Catalan confluence of United We Can, which maintain a position more prone to regulationist positions, for the moment does not reveal the meaning of the vote in order to facilitate the processing of this proposal, as explained by various sources from the confederal space .
The state co-spokesperson for the purple formation, Alejandra Jacinto, has explained that they are in favor of combating pimping, ending their "impunity", defending the rights of women and ending sexual exploitation. "It is an issue that needs to be addressed and the text of the PSOE adds to the efforts of the Ministry of Equality that have been made and continue to be made", she has asserted to remember the proposals of this department to recover the locative third party.
However, the Law of Guarantees of Sexual Freedom, known as the 'only yes is yes' law, was recently approved although its wording did not include this section, in order to achieve a broad consensus with the parliamentary groups.
Jacinto has explained that the Executive has taken steps in this abolitionist trend, such as the urgent action plan against trafficking and sexual exploitation, in addition to defending a modification of the immigration law.
Consequently, he has called for debate on the PSOE proposal to be "capable of generating an agreement against the pimp and sexual exploitation industry."
Meanwhile, the commons already registered last year an amendment to the law of 'Only yes is yes', which was not included in the text, to withdraw the recovery of the locative third party, the legal figure that alludes to the profit of those who provide a place in which the prostituted person engages in sexual activity (owners of the clubs, premises and flats where women engage in this practice), considering that this measure reinforces the stigma of prostitution and makes it difficult to distinguish between voluntary prostitution and forced prostitution.
The proposal that the PSOE takes to its debate in plenary session includes the modification of article 187 of the Penal Code so that it "generally punishes pimping, without requiring a relationship of exploitation." With this change, a prison sentence of 3 to 6 years and a fine of 18 to 24 months would be imposed on whoever, using violence, intimidation, or abusing a situation of superiority, or the need or vulnerability of the victim, determines a person to engage in or remain in prostitution.
Despite the fact that the process will go ahead with the support of PP and Podemos, doubts remain in the air about the position that the members of the Executive in Parliament will take, in addition to the common ones. In the debate on the law 'Only yes is yes', from which the PSOE text starts, ERC, PNV, EH-Bildu, Ciudadanos or CUP threatened not to approve the full text if it included this PSOE initiative. These formations have defended the need to deal with sexual exploitation in a calmer debate and guarantee the rights of those women who practice prostitution freely.
