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The Plenary of the Congress of Deputies has endorsed this Thursday the project promoted by the Ministry of Equality, the Organic Law of Comprehensive Guarantee of Sexual Freedom, which has previously gone through a “tortuous and complex path” -as has been said today in its parliamentary debate – for two years until its approval, today May 26, by the majority of parliamentary groups. Only Vox and PP have voted against. CUP has abstained. The text thus passes to a new phase of processing in the Senate.
Since March 2020, the rule cracked the positions of PSOE and United We Can, which were sifting the law by sections. The Council of State, the General Council of the Judiciary and the Supreme Court opposed the definition that was at the center of the wording, that of consent, due to its negative wording that meant eliminating the presumption of innocence, a basic pillar of the State of Law.
Thus, the new wording contains the express consent of the woman to have a positive intimate encounter: that is, she must express through her explicit acts that she agrees to have that relationship. “It doesn’t matter what time she is at,” says psychologist Bárbara Zorrilla. If she has wanted at first and then changes her mind or if she is in the middle of the act, she can say that she does not and her word is that negative ».
The new definition of consent states that “it will only be understood that there is consent when it has been freely expressed through acts that, in view of the circumstances of the case, clearly express the will of the person.”
The jurists, regardless of the spirit that forges that law, put more problems because its application is going to be complex, always depending on the criteria that a judge finally applies.
Consent, reform of sexual crimes by merging abuse and sexual assault as a single crime defined in the Penal Code and considering all types of violence against women (street harassment, exhibitionism, forced marriages and female genital mutilation, among others). other crimes) such as sexist violence are the keys to this rule.
The rule also develops procedural measures to accompany victims, including the possibility of avoiding eye contact with the alleged aggressor or testifying in special rooms. Similarly, this text includes the creation of 24-hour crisis centers to care for victims of sexual violence over 16 years of age, or children’s homes for those under that age.
The bill has also been approved, with the agreement reached yesterday Wednesday by the two parties in the Government with ERC, PNV and EH Bildu, by which minor sexual aggressors will be forced to go through education and training courses in equality and sexist violence.
No locative third party or prostitution
What has been left out of the norm, after its passage through the Equality Commission of Congress, is the recovery of the locative third party, as well as other measures related to the fight against trafficking for the purpose of sexual exploitation. “Now it’s not time. The Trafficking Law will come to the Chamber”, Sofía Castañón, from United We Can, has invoked.
Although Equality included this issue in the draft of the law and the PSOE sought to further toughen the measures with amendments to the text, the questions regarding this issue have finally been withdrawn due to lack of agreement. Formations such as PNV, ERC, Eh Bildu or Ciudadanos advocated that it be dealt with in a specific law and warned that they would not support the text if these initiatives were included.
The agreement reached on this issue was referred to by the Minister for Equality, Irene Montero, who spoke at the end of the debate to thank the deputies who were part of the negotiation of the regulation. In this sense, she has pointed out that, although there have been “difficult debates, she has worked constructively” to reach “broader agreements”. In the same way, she has reproached the “right and extreme right for the reactionary noise” towards this text. “They make a lot of noise, but we have shown that feminists are more.”
PP and Vox against
The only groups that have voted against this law have been PP and Vox. The spokeswoman for the ‘popular’ in this debate, Marta González, has regretted that prostitution is not included in it and has explained that this is not “the law that the PP would like” for its explanatory statement that, as it has indicated, “It seems like an electoral slogan by Podemos”; because “it puts at risk the presumption of innocence on which Spanish Criminal Law is based.
Vox representative Carla Toscano has lamented that Montero “forces the system to believe women without evidence”, allowing her to “take revenge or destroy the life of an innocent”.
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George is Digismak’s reported cum editor with 13 years of experience in Journalism