In Spain there are between 25,000 and 30,000 people in prostitution, most of them women, according to a research by the specialized association In Género, which estimates that there are around 800 brothels, 2,500 apartments and 50 street locations where this practice takes place.
45% of these people are in brothels, 51% in apartments and 4% on the street, explained this Monday in a press conference in Madrid the national coordinator of In Género, Miguel Ángel del Olmo. This association provides attention and accompaniment to victims of trafficking and sexual exploitation and to people in prostitution in nine autonomous communities.
The Community of Madrid, Catalonia, Andalusia and the Canary Islands are the places with the highest number of people in prostitution.
These data are an advance of an investigation that In Género is finalizing based on more than 4,500 questionnaires that have been answered by people in prostitution.
A majority of women
In addition, the association has made public this Monday its activity in 2023, when it assisted 6,055 people: 87% cisgender women, 9.7% transgender women, 3% cisgender men and 0.2% transgender men. In total, it carried out 21,798 interventions and intervened in 837 places where these practices are carried out: 62.8% apartments and private places, 33.2% brothels and 2.5% on the street.
Of those more than 6,000 people, 914 possible victims of sexual exploitation were detected, according to the legal representative of In Género, 47 possible victims of trafficking (of which 20 reported) and 35 women reported sexual assaults.
The majority of the people assisted in 2023 were between 23 and 42 years old (76.8%), followed by those between 43 and 79 years old (18%) and those between 18 and 22 years old (5.2%). The average was 35 years old.
Also, a vast majority of the people assisted were foreigners: Colombians (29.1%), Paraguayans (15.5%), Dominicans (13.4%), Venezuelans (7.8%), Romanians (7%), Brazilians (6%), Ecuadorians (3.3%), Peruvians (2.5%) and Cubans (1.9%). 4.5% were Spanish.
21.8% had Spanish nationality and 74.2% were registered in Spain. 36.9% were in an irregular administrative situation; 53.7%, regular; 2.7% had a tourist visa and 6.7% were processing their documentation.
Economic vulnerability
63.2% of the people assisted say that they arrived in Spain with a different objective than prostitution, while 36.8% knew that they would do it.
40% have been in prostitution contexts for less than a year; 21.5%, between one and three years; 13.3%, between five and ten years and 12%, more than a decade.
From In Género they have highlighted that the people who are in prostitution are very diverse, although they are crossed by multiple vulnerabilities, "risk factors and social exclusion to which we must add the stigma".
Del Olmo has stressed that more than 95% of people in prostitution contexts have family responsibilities: 56.8% of the people assisted had to support between 3 and 5 family members; 32.4% one or two; 6.9% six to ten and 0.4% more than ten.
Around a third of them have resorted to social services, while 47.8% do not even know them.
Regarding the level of studies of the more than 6,000 people assisted, 4.7% had no studies; 33.1%, primary; 58.5%, secondary or Vocational Training and 3.7%, higher education.
In 2023, In Género was present in different cities of Madrid (36% of the assistances), Castilla-La Mancha (28%), Andalusia (14%), Castilla y León (9%), Comunitat Valenciana (6%), Murcia (6%) and Extremadura (1%).
Human rights approach
The association has requested that people who are in prostitution can participate in political debates and the elaboration of laws that may affect them. In Género declares itself "neutral", neither abolitionist nor regulationist, but demands an approach that respects the human rights of these people, their decisions, and that allows them to access vital alternatives.
The legal representative of the organization has asked that the legislative project to punish third-party location be reconsidered, since she believes that it could harm the entire migrant population in their access to housing and would lead women to a dangerous clandestinity. Regarding punishing men who pay to access a woman's body, she has asked that the "collateral damage" does not fall on women.
Del Olmo agrees: "Punitivist measures do not lead us to anything, in the end the consequences are paid by women". On the other hand, she does not believe that the regularization of prostitution is a solution either, since it implies a stigma that many women, she said, would not want to carry.