Madrid Spain.- The Government of Spain announced that it intends to modify its law on sexual violence against women, to close legal loopholes that have allowed sentence reductions or release of some aggressors.
Since its entry into force in October, some 20 convicts have been released and another 300 have received reductions in their sentences, according to Spanish media, for which the Executive of the socialist Pedro Sánchez intends to make adjustments to the text.
“In the next few days we will present this bill (…), which of course is going to be a serious text, a rigorous text that provides an answer and a solution to those undesired effects that have occurred, and that obviously we do not want repeat themselves,” said the Minister of Education, Pilar Alegría, who is also the spokesperson for the Socialist Party.
“Logically, (…) the formula to punctually retouch those unwanted effects that have occurred will be substantiated in an increase in the penalties of sexual offenders.”
The controversy erupted in November, six weeks after the well-known “only yes is yes” law came into effect, to consider all sexual activity without explicit consent as aggression, in response to the notorious case of the group rape of “La Manada”. ” to a young woman in 2016.
The new text hardened the legal arsenal against violations. With this new law, the crime of “sexual abuse” disappeared, which was considered as such when there was no violence or intimidation, and implied less strict penalties. In this way, all sexual crimes were included in the category of “aggressions”.
However, the regulations reduced the minimum and maximum sentences for some cases, which led many convicts to request a review of the sentence, since in Spain the new laws can be applied retroactively if they benefit the prisoner.
Consent in the center
In recent days, rumors about the government’s desire to make the changes triggered tension with the minority partner in the coalition in power, the extreme left of Podemos, which championed the law, and fears that the issue of consent.
In this sense, Irene Montero, Minister of Equality and member of Podemos, rejected any possibility of going back and promised to do “everything necessary” to guarantee that consent continues to be at the core of the regulations.
The leader of Podemos, Ione Belarra, expressed the same line.
“Consent must remain at the center of the criminal code. We cannot return to the probative ordeal of demonstrating that we resisted enough or that we had not drunk,” Belarra, who is Minister of Social Rights, wrote on Twitter.
However, the main opposition formation, the Popular Party (PP, right), inflamed the controversy by offering the Socialists parliamentary support to modify the law without having to count on their partners.
The socialist ministers insisted, however, that the changes will try to correct the undesired effects, but that they will not affect the question of consent.
“The correction and modification of the ‘only yes is yes’ law is to prevent unwanted effects from occurring in the future,” the Minister of the Presidency, Félix Bolaños, assured reporters, who guaranteed that the text would continue “maintaining consent at the center of the criminal regime of sexual assaults, to prevent women from having an evidentiary ordeal in trials.”
Until the law came into force, rape victims had to prove that they had been subjected to violence or intimidation, since without these conditions the crime was considered abuse and not sexual assault, with lighter penalties.
