In Spain, abolitionist NGO Amar Dragoste has studied the drastic increase of young women trafficked from Colombia and points to the rise of recruitment on platforms such as OnlyFans.
The centre of Madrid, in Spain, by night. / Photo: [link]Arthur Hinton[/link], Unsplash, CC0.
The collapse of a network that trafficked 1,000 women for sexual exploitation in Spain has once again highlighted the enormous problem of prostitution in this Mediterranean country.
The women arrived illegally in Spain with promises of jobs in the cleaning or beauty sectors, but were forced to “work around the clock” in brothels, monitored by security cameras.
In the police operation in the regions of Alicante and Murcia, 3 brothels were closed, 17 properties, firearms and more than 1 million euros generated by the criminal network, led by a Spanish man and 2 Colombian women, were seized.
Colombia is precisely the source of trafficked persons of most concern in Spain, Carolina Sánchez Bermejo, director of the NGO Amar Dragoste, told Evangelical Focus.
In December 2024, the group presented a study carried out with SINTRATA, in which they studied 50 real cases of trafficked women in Spain, based on police reports and court rulings.
[photo_footer] According to a research by Amar Dragoste and SINTRATA, in 89% of the cases studied of Colombian women exploited in Spain, the victims paid perpetrators every day. / [/photo_footer] “The average age of Colombian victims is 22 years old, while the average age of traffickers or exploiters is 37 years old. This difference of 15 years suggests that in the victimisation processes, there may be a transition from victim to perpetrator, promoted from within the exploitation business itself”, explains Carolina Sánchez.
Many of the women tricked into sexual exploitation in Spain are deceived by people they already knew (54%). The traffickers or exploiters “in Colombia are usually women (62%), while once they arrive in Spain, they are mostly men (60%), and one out of every two men is Romanian”, the data show.
92% of the Colombian women trafficked in Spain arrived by plane at Madrid’s international airport Adolfo Suárez-Barajas. From there, the victims are transported by taxi, private vehicle, bus to the places where they would be sexually exploited (in 95% of the cases) for an average of 9 to 10 months.
According to the study (available here in Spanish language), “sexual exploitation of women occurs in 71% of cases in flats or private homes”, which also end up being the place where the victims sleep.
Most women (80%) live in cohabitation with other victims. 72% handed over money to their traffickers or exploiters on a daily basis. The perpetrators threaten the women with physical harm to themselves or their families of origin in Colombia, or with denunciation to the authorities because of their irregular situation.
In half of the cases, these women were publicly offered in prostitution advertisements on the internet.
[photo_footer] Carolina Sánchez Bermejo (centre) after receiving the White Medal for Police Merit of the National Police of Spain in October 2024. / Photo: Amar Dragoste [/photo_footer] In Spain, a leading country in the consumption of prostituted women, voices of pressure groups in favour of so-called ‘sex work’ as a legitimate option that should be normalised in society have become more audible.
Behind a current social media campaign using podcasts and interviews with prostituted women to influence public opinion is Alfredo Urdaci, a well-known journalist who once presented the main news show on Spain’s public broadcaster Televisión Española.
“Lobbyists like Alfredo [Urdaci] have a lot to gain from the normalisation and regularisation of prostitution”, replies Carolina Sánchez. “In these debates we always have to ask ourselves: what are the interests, and who is really winning in prostitution? Because one thing we can be sure of, it is never the prostituted women who win”.
The director of Amar Dragoste adds: “In our case, we have nothing to gain from abolition. In fact, with abolition and an end to sexual exploitation, we would end up losing our work, which, frankly, is our ultimate goal”.
The debate over whether there needs to be a supply of prostitution in societies should be overcome, dhe argues, by a deeper question: “Why do consumers believe they have a right to access women's bodies in exchange for money?”
“We believe that the evidence is now compelling that prostitution, pornography and other forms of sexual and other forms of sexual exploitation cannot be considered work and are fueling the epidemic of male violence that is wreaking havoc on individual lives and our entire social fabric”, she argues.
All these interrelated practices, she concludes, amount to “one of the most serious, systematic and global human rights violations today”.
“There is more than enough research and data to prove that prostitution is exploitation and pure commodification of bodies, mainly of vulnerable people”, Sánchez tells Evangelical Focus. “That is why we have been demanding the abolition of prostitution for years”.
[photo_footer] A poster in the premises of the NGO Amar Dragoste reads: Fighting for freedom life by life. / Photo: Amar Dragoste. [/photo_footer] In the case of Amar Dragoste, the priority is working towards the “freedom” of the women survivors of trafficking, sexual exploitation and prostitution.
Personalised accompaniment is provided and “resources are created for their comprehensive care, guaranteeing psychological, legal and social support adapted to their specific needs”.
Groups working in the field of the dark world of prostitution need to research “current trends” and “emerging phenomena”.
“Worrying” trends that Carol Sanchez and her team have observed in recent years include the “growth of recruitment through digital platforms such as OnlyFans or through the use of deepfakes”.
This makes “work in political advocacy” needed as well, promoting “abolitionist policies that ensure their protection and freedom”.
The government of Spain has expressed in the last years support for an abolitionist policy that views prostitution as a form of exploitation that denigrates women and should therefore be abolished, not regulated.
Still, Carol Sanchez tells Evangelical Focus, “intervention with trafficked or sexually exploited women requires a commitment even beyond the standards of protection imposed by governments”.
“These are lives that have been totally destroyed and need a new chance to heal, to recover and to dream again”. The aim, together with each of these women, is to “fight life by life, so that they can emerge even stronger and more resilient” and see “profound healing”.
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