The government plans to ban or at least regulate this multi-billion dollar business. How much money is actually involved per year? At the moment, prostitution is not illegal and neither is running a brothel. Days before she recently left the government, Calvo expressed a desire to see paid sex abolished during this term of office.
She urged Irene Montero, as Equality Minister, to support and take over her mission to ban prostitution in Spain. Yet prostitution is an almost invisible business, comfortably installed outside the confines of legality. The opacity of this black market makes it difficult to fathom. Therefore, it is virtually impossible to reliably assess the vast amounts of money involved every day. Capital Radio made an attempt. In Spain, the only approximation comes from INE The statistical office has been studying β under European regulations β the contribution of prostitution and related activities to the national GDP for a few years now.
In , prostitution represented 0. These figures are still insignificant compared to the billions that disappear in the underground economy.
Before the pandemic, there were more than 1, brothels in the country. The activities of those brothels were equally divided between urban centres and outlying areas. More than a thousand prostitutes work in the Colonia de Marconi Madrid or the Raval district Barcelona alone. Over the entire national territory, it is estimated that the number rises to , prostitutes.
There are many reasons why Spain has become a hot spot, but according to insiders, the biggest factor is cultural. The demand for prostitution has become so large and normalised it is seen as another form of leisure activity.
