Alvaro Carvajal Madrid
Ana Maria Ortiz
Paloma H. Matellano
Madrid
Updated Friday, March 8, 2024-00:05
8-M The Minister of Equality will 'divide' on 8-M: she will go to the official march and support the alternative
Equality The Government rules out protecting abortion in the Constitution due to lack of "consensus" and Sumar warns of forcing the debate in Congress
Today, the
8-M
takes women and men to the streets throughout Spain again in hundreds of events to demand gender equality. However, the division between feminist groups is consolidated for the third consecutive year and deflates the muscle that in 2018 led to an unprecedented mobilization in the country.
It is true that if in this edition the social fracture of the feminist movement remains, however, the political polarization between the parties, mainly on the left, is more relaxed, since last year the Government reached this date crossed by a crude confrontation between the PSOE and Unidas Podemos for the
Trans Law
and for the imposition of
Pedro Sánchez
to correct the effects of the 'only yes means yes' law on sentence reductions.
In the first 8-M with
Irene Montero
out of the Government and with the socialist
Ana Redondo
making her debut as Minister of Equality, the partisan struggle has given a truce and the left will march again today in the same demonstration in Madrid with swords sheathed.
However, this is only a temporary unit.
The use of feminism emerges as a polarizing element in the future struggle for the European elections, with Montero who, as a candidate, has made this issue one more battering ram against Sumar -for removing her- and against the PSOE -due to the change in the Ministry and her hand extended to classical feminists.
But before that struggle, another threat appears to blow up the truce on the left and open a hole in the Government.
It is the battle that is coming:
prostitution
.
The PSOE is going to present an "abolitionist" bill in Congress to persecute clients and punish those who profit from those who carry out this activity.
This is what the Minister of Equality has announced in her appearances, thus raising one of the flags of classic feminism and historical ones of the PSOE.
The point is that regulationist and abolitionist currents coexist in Sumar, so, to begin with, this issue would generate a
strong internal division within the
coalition government.
So the PSOE would be forced to agree on said law with the PP or to resign itself to not being able to carry it out and lose.
Prostitution is, in addition to gender or trans identity laws, one of the oldest and, at the same time, most entrenched debates within feminism.
Without there being a minimum consensus among women where to move, beyond the persecution of trafficking.
This "unresolved debate" causes each political party to have its own position and makes
the pact difficult
.
The Catalan parties as a whole are in the pro-regulation movement.
Or, as they prefer to label themselves, they are "pro-rights" and reject "punitivism."
This means that the PSOE would lose the common vote (Sumar), ERC and Junts.
Likewise, EH Bildu falls into this group.
It is not that the PSOE is left without partners, it is that it could not count on part of Sumar either.
It is true that IU draws from the same abolitionist current as the PSOE, but not formations like Más Madrid, just as happens with the commons, which are openly "pro-rights."
This range of positions breaks the parliamentary majority that holds Sánchez and he already showed his teeth when
he was about to overthrow the 'only yes means yes' law
for an "abolitionist" amendment of the PSOE, which he had to withdraw in extremis because the law was going to decline.
This forces the PSOE to take a ladder to look over the "wall" and shout out to the PP to seek an agreement.
Only with the popular votes does his bill have a chance of being approved.
In the last legislature, this bipartisan agreement was formed in the first examination of the PSOE proposal, which was the vote for its admission for processing.
PP and PSOE
voted hand in hand
, but then that text was left in a drawer.
Now Redondo promises to recover that same text.
When?
It is not known.
But classical feminism pushes and today it will march with the slogan
Abolition now
.
Fine whoremongers and third parties
As announced by the Minister of Equality, the PSOE will once again seek to punish pimping
even when there is no condition of exploitation
, begin to fine those who consume prostitution and classify
third-party rental
as a crime.
Three issues that, far from generating consensus, divide feminist groups.
Thus, the socialist proposal aims to make a radical change in the way this practice is punished, fining not only pimps - who obtain benefits from the prostitution of another person - but also
those who pay for sex
.
The Commission for the Investigation of Mistreatment of Women points out that this is something "
fundamental
" - "without demand there will be no supply" -, while the "pro-rights" groups consider that, far from ending sexual practices carried out in exchange for money, this
will increase its clandestinity
.
"The aim is to eradicate the vulnerability of these women and the opposite will be achieved," says the coordinator of the Committee to Support Sex Workers (CATS),
Nacho Pardo
.
The 8M Commission fears that women will be "criminalized" and exposed to greater vulnerability.
The second controversy of the socialist proposal comes because it aims to prosecute "those who facilitate the prostitution of another person", replacing the dictate of article 187 of the Penal Code, which includes penalties "for anyone who profits by exploiting the prostitution of another person."
The big difference: the word "
exploitation
."
Again, the positions are opposite.
Pardo denounces that pimping that is carried out without coercion "does not present any comparative grievance compared to any other work activity", while the Commission for the Investigation of Mistreatment of Women points out that "anything that involves sanctioning the pimp is progress" .
And there is more, because Equality wants to punish all those who "profit from prostitution", which means also persecuting the owners of the places where it takes place - the
locative third party
-.
Pardo points out that it is a "real disaster" because, he believes, it will "encourage racist behavior" among immigrant women, and
all groups agree
- for the only time - that a measure of this caliber must be preceded by
economic and social support measures
to women.