A rare measure in Europe intended to strengthen the fight against rape. A bill aimed at guaranteeing sexual freedom, which notably establishes the obligation of explicit consent, was approved on Tuesday by the Spanish left-wing government.
This text “makes clear the fact that silence or passivity do not mean consent or that the fact of not expressing your opposition can not be an excuse to act against the will of the other person”, said the spokesperson. of the government, María Jesús Montero, during a press conference following the Council of Ministers.
The affair of “the Pack”
Often called “the law of ‘only yes means yes’”, this bill also removes the distinction between assault and rape, which was at the heart of the so-called “Pack” case, the gang rape in 2016 d ‘a young woman by five men, whose trial two years later sparked a powerful feminist wave across Spain. The conviction of these five men – who had committed the rape during the San Fermin celebrations in Pamplona and had filmed their actions – to nine years in prison for sexual assault and not for rape had taken tens of thousands of people to the streets. women and led to numerous calls to toughen the Penal Code.
In Spain, in the current state of the legislation, the qualification of rape can only be retained in the event of violence or intimidation. The other cases are considered as sexual assaults, for which the penalties incurred are lighter. This bill is inspired by a text that was presented in March 2020 but which had aroused many reluctance and had remained a dead letter. Unlike last year’s text, the bill adopted on Tuesday does not define, Conversely, which is not consent but clearly determines the form it must take. “It will be considered that there is consent only when it will be manifested freely by means of acts which, depending on the circumstances of the situation, clearly express the will of the person”, states the text, according to the media. Spaniards who had access to it.
Inspired by Swedish law
In addition, this bill considers, for the first time, street harassment, as well as forced marriage and genital mutilation, as offenses and hardens the penal arsenal against procuring. María Jesús Montero did not specify when the text would be submitted to Parliament but expressed the wish that it be voted “by a large majority”. Equality Minister Irene Montero recognized in 2020 that Spain was inspired by a pioneering Swedish law which, since 2018, considers any sexual act without an explicit agreement to be rape.
Spain has been a benchmark country in the fight against violence against women since the passage in 2004 of a pioneering law notably introducing gender difference as an aggravating circumstance of violence. According to the NGO Amnesty International, only a few European countries define rape as an unwanted sexual act. Some states have recently strengthened their legislation on this subject.
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