La política de la prostitución

El papel del movimiento de mujeres y los organismos de igualdad en España

Abstract

Ever since the mid sixties the policy adopted towards prostitution in Spain was basically
abolitionist, since the legal system did not define the exercise of prostitution as a crime, but
considered a great number of other kinds of conduct within this sphere to be so, such as organizing
the outside party or gaining money from his/her activity. As from 1995, the central body of the State
has decriminalized almost all conduct relating to prostitution, preferring to centre this public policy
on the fight against the trafficking of people for their sexual exploitation. This article documents the
modest role played by the movement organized by women and by organizations working towards
equality in the drawing up of the main legislation regarding prostitution in the post-Franco period,
and identifies two reasons for explaining this scanty intervention: weak priority granted to
prostitution by social and institutional feminism (taken as a whole) and the low permeability of the
parliamentary political arena regarding the influence of external agents.