Bravo asks to modify the highway law to fine the client and the pimp

If until now the modification of the Shows Law was focused on the places where prostitution is practiced, the Ministry of Justice is now also focusing on the roads, another of the spaces to which the consumption of prostitution is attached.

The head of the regional department, Gabriela Brave, has announced this Monday during his speech at the Feminist Forum “Proposals Prostitution Ordinance” organized by the area of ​​Citizen Protection of the City of Valencia that has asked the Ministry of Public Works, which also directs the socialist Rebeca Torró, a change in the highway law so that clients who acquire sexual services as well as pimps can be punished.

“We have asked the Ministry of Public Works and Mobility the need to modify the regional highway law to persecute the plaintiff and any type of prostitution that is exercised and forces the prostitutes who are there”, expressed Bravo who added that with this measure he wants to “protect the prostitutes”.

The request to modify several articles of the Road Law of the Valencian Community of 1991 so that prostitution clients who intend to acquire paid sex on regionally owned roads can be sanctioned with fines of up to 15,000 euros. In this sense, it will be considered a serious infraction that can be sanctioned with fines of between 3,001 and 15,000 euros “in order to establish a society free of prostitution.”

The councilor explained that the proposal sent to the Department of Territorial Policy requests the inclusion of a new article at the end of Title VIII of the regional regulations on roads where “the temporary occupation of public domain areas, of protection and reserve to carry out uses and activities related to the provision of services of a sexual nature. In addition, the proposal adds that “an action procedure to support and protect people who carry out uses and activities related to the provision of services of a sexual nature” must be established.

In this way, the proposal of the Ministry of Justice also includes the addition to article 41 of the Highway Law, a new section that defines as a serious offense “requesting, negotiating or accepting, directly or indirectly, paid sexual services in spaces subject to this law, as provided in its article 2. In no case will the behaviors detailed in said articles be grounds for sanctioning women in a situation of prostitution or victims of sexual exploitation.”

The objective is, therefore, similar to that of modifying the Show Law or to the municipal ordinances proposed by this department with economic sanctions to discourage demand and in which, insist from the ministry, in no case fining prostituted women. “We will act in the brothels, in the streets of the municipalities and on the highways and in coordination with security forces to establish zero tolerance for prostitution,” she stressed.

In the case of Show Law The focus is on the premises where, the regulation specifies, they benefit economically from prostitution (by renting rooms, for example) as well as those who advertise. On the other hand, in the municipal ordinances already presented in 400 municipalities (they need to be approved) fines are expected for customers.

To this is added the debate in Congress with the modification of the Penal Code that also intends to sanction clients (with up to three years in prison in the event that conditions of vulnerability of the prostituted woman are given, such as being a minor).

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