Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez has pledged to “abolish” prostitution in the country, saying it “enslaves” women. Speaking at the end of a three-day congress of his Socialist party in Valencia, Sanchez highlighted government policies he said had helped Spain advance. “And out of this congress emerges a commitment I will implement. We will advance by abolishing prostitution, which enslaves women,” Sanchez said.

While sexual exploitation and pimping are illegal, prostitution was decriminalised in Spain in 1995. In 2016, the United Nations estimated the country’s sex industry was worth $4.2 billion. A 2009 survey by the country’s state-owned Social Investigations Centre (CIS) found that one out of three men in Spain had paid for sex while another report published the same year estimated the figure to be be as high as 39%. A 2011 UN study said Spain was the third biggest centre for prostitution in the world, behind Thailand and Puerto Rico.

Around 300,000 women are estimated to work as prostitutes in Spain amid concerns around being women being trafficked into sex work, reports news agency AFP. In 2017, Spanish police identified 13,000 women in anti-trafficking raids, stating that at least 80% of them were being exploited against their will by a third party, according to BBC News.

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Sanchez took office in January 2020. His Socialist party called prostitution “one of the cruellest aspects of the feminisation of poverty and one of the worst forms of violence against women” in its election manifesto. But, two years later, no legislation or bill has been tabled.

Protests were held across Spain on the UN’s international day for the elimination of violence against women in November 2018 with several protesters carrying signs that called for ban on prostitution. The Spanish government permitted establishment of a sex workers’ trade union Organizacion de Trabadjaroras Sexuales in August 2018.