Irene Montero argues that to help victims of sexual exploitation it is necessary to provide them with employment and housing
The Government approved this Tuesday in the Council of Ministers the Camino Plan, an initiative endowed with 204 million euros between now and 2026 and aimed at helping victims of trafficking, sexual exploitation and women in prostitution. The Minister of Equality, Irene Montero, assured that this project, aimed at abolishing the sex trade, will try to solve the administrative regularization of foreign women. Montero acknowledged that the plan is insufficient, but she assured that any measure to eradicate prostitution involves reforming the immigration policy. “We want the fact of not having papers not to be an obstacle for these women to access their rights,” said the minister during a debate on the problem.
To design public policies that attend to the victims of trafficking and sexual exploitation, Equality will carry out a macro-survey to find out the situation of girls and women who work in prostitution. According to the minister, it will be one of the most complete sociological studies that have been carried out to date in Spain and in the EU.
The spirit that permeates the initiative is that no woman who is a victim of trafficking and exploitation sees her rights curtailed due to the impossibility of filing a complaint. Among the rights that a comprehensive policy to abolish prostitution must contemplate is seeking employment, housing, training, and psychological and health care for the victims.
The plan includes 28 measures, some already approved and others pending definitive support, involving a dozen ministerial departments. The project incorporates actions that aim to discourage demand and work on prevention. As Montero said, prostitution is a “men’s problem” who consumes it and victimizes women. They also want to locate the victims and provide them with comprehensive care and social and labor opportunities. The intention of the ministry is to reach 30,000 women by 2026 with its policies.
To try to meet this objective, the Government is committed to creating a specific program for these women that guarantees access to public housing.
Vagueness
The “formal identification and documentary regularity” of women victims of trafficking and sexual exploitation represents one of the five lines of action of the plan. Montero said it has been difficult to bring the plan to fruition. But the truth is that the initiative is weighed down by vagueness and the scarcity of concrete commitments. The Secretary of State for Equality and against Gender Violence, Ángela Rodríguez, believes that “in order to guarantee the rights of victims of trafficking, it is imperative to offer “economic autonomy” and modify the Immigration Law, for which it is necessary to “convince government partners.
The organizations that serve prostitutes estimate that 90% of the beneficiaries of their programs are immigrants in an irregular administrative situation. “In Spain it is estimated that more than 90,000 women could be victims of trafficking and sexual exploitation. Women who have always been the forgotten ones, the isolated ones, those who are on the margins of the institutions,” Montero lamented.
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