Recently, Spain’s Prime Minister — Pedro Sanchez, said he would ban prostitution in the country. Going back, Spain decriminalized prostitution in 1995. Since then sex work in the country rose. It is no secret that sex workers often face violence.

Perhaps this is why Prime Minister Sanchez is set on banning prostitution in Spain. He believes that prostitution infringes women’s rights and freedom. Find out if the public agrees with his point of view from results gathered via banning prostitution in Spain Real Research survey.

Highlights

  • The majority (55.43%) agree with banning prostitution in Spain
  • 39.31% have not received a prostitution service
  • 60.93% say prostitution violates women’s rights

64.10% Agree With Prime Minister Sanchez

Real Research first asked if the respondents think Prime Minister Sanchez is right to ban prostitution. Here, 64.10% agree with him. To push further, Real Research asked them why they think Prime Minister Sanchez is banning prostitution.

Figure 1: Reasons for Prime Minister Sanchez banning prostitution in Spain

Specifically, 27.65% said to secure the female voters’ support. Likewise, 7.35% said to discourage the growing demand for prostitution. More so, 7.58% said it is a sector with high violence against women. In addition, 4.29% said to prevent human trafficking.

Read Also: As Society Evolves, Gender Inequality Remains

Some Respondents’ Feel Prostitution Should Not Be Banned

Accordingly, the results found that 55.43% of the respondents recognize prostitution in the sex industry as a legitimate profession. So, we asked the respondents for their reasons for saying no ban on prostitution. The majority 23.55% said it brings safety and benefits for sex workers.

In turn, 9.07% say these sex workers work voluntarily and 4.59% said decriminalizing prostitution will prevent STDs from spreading. Moreover, 3.11% said instead of a ban, new laws to protect sex workers should be put in place. Furthermore,3.08% said decriminalization will eliminate illegal services.

Figure 2: Reasons to not ban prostitution

With 42.52% of the respondents’ saying that prostitution is legal in their residing countries, Real Research asked if any of them had gotten a prostitution service. 43.56% said ‘Yes’. Next, we asked how they feel about prostitution in general. Here, 37.39% have a positive take, while 26.41% seem negative, and the rest are neutral.

The majority think prostitution violates women’s rights
Figure 3: The majority think prostitution violates women’s rights

Next, we asked the respondents’ thoughts on whether they feel that prostitution violates women’s rights. On this matter, 60.93% said ‘Yes’ and the rest said ‘No’.

Methodology

Survey TitlePublic Opinion on Banning Prostitution in Spain
DurationOctober 26 – November 02, 2021
Number of Participants30,000
DemographicsMales and females, aged 21 to 99
Participating CountriesAfghanistan, Algeria, Angola, Argentina, Armenia, Australia, Austria, Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Belarus, Benin, Bhutan, Bolivia, Brazil, Brunei, Bulgaria, Burkina Faso, Cambodia, Cameroon, Canada, Chile, China, China (Hong-Kong), China (Macao), China (Taiwan), Colombia, Costa Rica, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Ecuador, Egypt, El Salvador, Estonia, Ethiopia, Finland, France, Gambia, Georgia, Germany, Ghana, Greece, Grenada, Guatemala, Honduras, Hungary, India, Indonesia, Iraq, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Ivory Coast, Japan, Jordan, Kenya, Kuwait, Kyrgyzstan, Latvia, Lebanon, Libya, Lithuania, Macedonia, Malaysia, Maldives, Mauritania, Mexico, Moldova, Mongolia, Morocco,Mozambique, Myanmar [Burma], Namibia, Nepal, Netherlands, New Zealand, Nicaragua, Nigeria, Oman, Pakistan, Palestine, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Philippines, Poland, Portugal, Qatar, Romania, Russia, Rwanda, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, Serbia, Sierra leone, Singapore, Slovakia, Slovenia, Somalia, South Africa, South Korea, Spain, Sri Lanka, Swaziland, Sweden, Tajikistan, Tanzania, Thailand, Togo, Tunisia, Turkey, Turkmenistan, Uganda, Ukraine, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, United States, Uruguay, Uzbekistan, Venezuela, Vietnam, Yemen, Zimbabwe.