The Ministry of Equality led by socialist Sira Rego estimates that in 2023 there will have been a total of 7,457 women with active advertisements for prostitution in the Balearic Islandswhich represents the Autonomous Community with the highest rate in the country with 121.38 women per 10,000 in this situation.
This is one of the conclusions that emerge from the “Macro-study on trafficking, sexual exploitation and prostitution of women: a quantitative approach”. At the national level, it is estimated that in 2023 there will be between 152,735 and 184,234 women in a situation of prostitution.
The report states that as of August 2023, 114,576 women had been the subject of active prostitution advertisements. However, Equality specifies that there are more women in prostitution because They are not advertised on the Internet and because not all existing portals have been analyzed. For this reason, in the study they used indirect statistical methods to estimate hidden populations, such as the truncated Poisson method, which estimated that in Spain, in 2023, there could be approximately between 152,735 and 184 234 prostituted women.
According to this estimate, the study reveals that, by communities, in Andalusia There could have been 16,621 prostituted women in 2023; In Aragon2,983; In Asturias2,401; In Balearic Islands7,457; In Canary Islands5,938; In Castile and León4,682; In Castile-La Mancha3,533; In Catalonia37,387; in the Valencian Community38,819; In Extremadura1,045; In Galicia5,371; in the Community of Madrid27,490; In Murcia2,562; In Navarre949; In the Basque Country7,125; and in La Rioja1,284.
For this report, more than 650,000 data from prostitution sites. According to Equality sources, the study focused exclusively on analyzing advertisements for female prostitution on websites offering in-person services, and cybersex websites or advertisements and videos with sexual content were excluded.
After a process of eliminating duplicates per page and irrelevant or false information, 204,433 advertisements were detected, among which 114,576 prostituted women were subsequently identified through advertisements on the Web. This figure represents 0.56% of the total number of adult women in Spain.
28% of prostitutes are between 18 and 24 years old
By age, the study reveals that, of these 114,576, 28% are between 18 and 24 years old; from 25 to 36 years old 32%; from 37 to 45 years old 7%; and from 46 to 55 years old 1.6%. Furthermore, the study indicates that in the 31% of ads do not reflect age.
It also reveals that 51.3% of women identified in the advertisements define themselves as “Latinas» and 16.3% are of European origin. The most common nationality is Colombian, with 28.2%; Spanish comes next, with 13.4% (even if the study specifies that this category includes many people of foreign origin); Brazilian, with 4.9%; Venezuelan, with 4.8%; Paraguayan, with 2%; and the Dominican, with 1.1%.
Between 9,764 and 17,639 people at risk of being trafficked
On the other hand, the study reveals that of the 114,576 women with advertisements of active prostitution in August 2023, among 9,764 and 17,639 were at risk of being trafficked for sexual exploitation and up to 27,757 people are at risk of sexual exploitation.
To obtain this latest data, the study analyzed the risk terms that appear in advertisements, for which it defined six variables (novelty, availability, personality traits, exoticism, services and photos) that correlate with those identified in other previous studies. international organizations such as the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE). Thus, the number mentioned above (between 9,764 and 17,639) corresponded to three or more risk variables, while 92,496 satisfied only one.
Along the same lines, he adds that analyzing a single variable in isolation is considered inappropriate. Rather, he explains that we must pay attention to the accumulation of multiple variables. In any case, it emphasizes that the presence of risk indicators constitutes a starting point for an investigation and not proof in itself of sexual exploitation or trafficking for the purposes of sexual exploitation.
Equality sources point out that advertisements related to prostitution carried out exclusively virtually were not taken into account for the analysis and estimation. It was also not possible to extract information on the presence of minors, since it is something hidden. Furthermore, this indicates that route and travel information was also not obtained.
