A new in-depth study to be published by the government shows that 0.56% of all women in Spain are in prostitution.

The data draw an updated picture of the so-called ‘sex industry’ in a country traditionally known for its high rates of prostitution consumption and human trafficking.

“We need to put ourselves in front of the mirror of this terrible reality”, said the Minister of Equality of the Spanish government, Ana Redondo. “There are 114,560 women that are in a situation of prostitution”, she told the media as she presented results of a research that has used Artificial Intelligence tools to analyse over 600,000 prostitution adverts on the internet.

The report concludes that, in Spain, there are 92,500 who are at risk of being trafficked for sexual exploitation, representing 80% of all women in prostitution.

According to the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, three quarters oo all victims of trafficking and prostitution advertise online.

According to the first data made public (the full report will be published in October), 51% of the prostituted women in Spain are from Latin America, 16% from European countries, while in 29% of the cases it was not possible to know the nationality.

Only 13.5% of the women in prostitution in Spain are nationals of the country, the research concludes.

The broad scope of this “pioneer study in Europe”, will be useful to update the picture of prostitution and sexual exploitation in Spain, where in the last years lobbys and NGOs have often debated over very disparate data.

An abolitionist law on the table

Ana Redondo, who has been in charge of the ministry fighting inequalities since 2024, has clearly taken an abolitionist approach to prostitution. Despite a project law to ban the purchase of sex was refused by the parliament, the minister insisted her aim is for Spain to have a “law similar to that of France” by 2027.

“What is not talked about does not exist. It is therefore necessary to have an approximate figure of a hidden and difficult to access population such as women and girls who are victims of trafficking, sexual exploitation and prostitution, in order to know the magnitude of the problem and, consequently, to address it”.

In June 2023, the European Parliament adopted a report that defined prostitution as a form of violence against women, and called for an European strategy that criminalises pimps and buyers of sex.

Working on the ground with victims

A former victim of prostitution and now anti-prostitution activist, Amelia Tiganus, attended the press conference. She is originally from Romania, was exploited in Spain, and denounces that “organised crime seeks to convert our sons into consumers of women, of prostitution and pornographic content, and our daughters in the raw materials for it”.

The abolitionist approach which seeks to end the demand of prostitution and support women who have been victims in restoring their lives and return to the labour market is supported by Christian organisations such as the Spanish Evangelical Alliance, and NGOs working on the ground like Amar Dragoste or Nueva Vida.