The Government will not act united this Tuesday. The vote on a law that, at the proposal of the PSOE, proposes toughening the punishment for pimping and fining payment for sex, will not be supported by Sumar, dramatizing in the plenary session of Congress the division of the two souls of the coalition Executive on this matter. Therefore, the success of the socialist initiative will depend on whether it attracts the support of the Popular Party.
The position is so firm in the group led by Yolanda Díaz that the deputies of Sumar Gala Pin, Tesh Sidi and Engracia Rivera have not waited for the plenary session to announce the opposite direction of their vote to the socialist proposal of which, they have disfigured, they has presented unilaterally without even agreeing with his partner.
“All the forces that make up the Sumar space cannot support this bill, which is generally plagued by inequality, structural racism, often also by transphobia, poverty, and the bill of PSOE does not address solutions to any of these structural issues at all, which prevents us from giving it support,” said the commons deputy Gala Pin.
The party led by the second vice president, Yolanda Díaz, has argued that the PSOE bill would place many of these women who practice prostitution in a context of “more precariousness, defenselessness and vulnerability” and for that reason they cannot support it.
Sumar also emphasizes that the socialists’ proposal does not address the structural issues that affect women who “engage in prostitution,” and regrets that it “deepens the division,” which divides feminism.
Given these “inconsistencies”, Sumar sources understand that the will of the Socialist Party in presenting this bill coinciding with the European pre-campaign is “purely electoral.” Only in this way can it be understood, they assure from the confederal space, that the PSOE has not continued discussing its proposal with the Government or investiture partners.
The plurinational group coordinated by Yolanda Díaz is in favor of “persecuting coercive pimping” but sees “large gaps” in the PSOE text because it does not address social and economic measures such as employability, housing or training, which is why, they say, “It will hardly allow prostitution to be eradicated.”
These gaps, however, have served as glue within Sumar where, a priori, the starting point of the law generates conflicting positions among the different partners with the commons, Más Madrid and Compromís on one side, and Izquierda Unida on the other. The former do not want to prohibit prostitution, but instead lean toward regulation that regularizes and protects the working conditions for women who practice it. And the formation led since this weekend by Antonio Maíllo advocates a more restrictive postulate that involves abolition.