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Four out of every ten Spaniards have at some point requested prostitution services, according to the UN. In fact, Spain occupies the first place in the European ranking of prostitution consumption.

More than 40 million women and girls are victims of trafficking for sexual exploitation worldwide and in Spain they are. more than 80% of prostituted women.

To help these women recover their lives, the Madrid City Council has the Municipal Network for Attention to Women in Contexts of Prostitution and Victims of Traffickingwhich depends on the Area of ​​Families, Equality and Social Welfare, led by Pepe Aniorte.

Last month, the Aniorte team launched the Municipal Emergency Center for Victims of Trafficking that completes the network devices in all their phases: from the moment the woman is freed from the situation of violence, until she is able to recover her life.

The new center

The network was missing a key element to provide emergency and rapid response to women victims of trafficking and sexual exploitation. The new space was presented by Begoña Villacís last January. This has 15 places and offers protected accommodation and comprehensive care to women and sons and daughters subjected to trafficking for the purposes of sexual exploitation and in the context of prostitution.

He Mariana Pineda Municipal Emergency Center for Victims of Trafficking is in operation and several women have already arrived through the Security Forces and Bodies, on their own initiative, through the municipal Mobile Unit and entities specialized in fighting trafficking.

Once the women arrive at the center, the workers They make sure they are well and try to meet their basic needs, such as food and rest. If they feel well they do what they call “reception” where they explain what the center is, the rights they have… and they are given a kit hygiene and everything you may need during your stay.

The next step that women take is to interview the social worker so that you can assess your situation, a evaluation of the risk that each woman runs and a safety plan is designed and initiated. Afterwards, the women who arrive see the lawyer, although sometimes the interviews are done together. She is lending them legal advice so that women can know their rights and legal situation, in addition to taking care of the administrative part.

Women receive psychological care, protection and legal advice

If they come low crisis situation They are attended to first by the psychologist, and if not later, the center’s workers adapt to the situation of each woman.

In the center there are cooks, cleaners, security personnel, and four social services assistants who provide support and accompaniment. As already mentioned, there is a social worker who provides specialized care and designs an individualized plan for every woman.

The psychologist accompanies them throughout the process, seeking to reduce the impact of the situation they have gone through. She performs an initial assessment and tries to reduce possible crises and stabilize the women. There is also a psychologist childish who is responsible for supporting when there is minors in the centerknowing the state of their mental health, the possible trauma and the mother-child relationship.

The six social educators accompany women from everyday life to help them with all the difficulties they may encounter. In addition, there is an intercultural mediator that works so that the cultural differences that frequently arise are not an added difficulty.

The work of all professionals is articulated thanks to the work of the center coordinator. This is responsible for resource management, the technical project, coordinating all areas of intervention and providing 24/7 support.

Approach victims

The Mobile Unit and the Concepción Arenal Comprehensive Care Center for Women function as a unit which has 16 professionals. The person in charge of the center explains that they are a multidisciplinary team in which career counselors, psychologists, lawyers, cultural mediators and social workers work.

Four social workers and two intercultural mediators form the Mobile Unit. Your mission is approach women in prostitution, good because they are victims of trafficking for sexual exploitation, well because they are in a situation of coercive prostitution or because they are being sexually exploited by other means.

This team takes to the streets in a caravan screen printed with the colors of the City Council and the logo of the municipal government area on which they depend. They move to spaces where prostitution is traditionally practiced, such as the center of Madrid, the Marconi industrial estate in Villaverde and the Casa de Campo. There they try connect with women and resolve their needs, The ultimate goal being to remove them from exercise.

691 women were assisted in 2021

The Unit works in open spaces, but also closed ones. These include clubs and apartments, because in recent years prostitution has begun to proliferate in private apartments. “Individuals, but not women, pimps or exploiters,” explains the person in charge of the Concepción Arenal Unit and Center.

In 2021, it has served 691 different women and has made 3,498 approaches in total, of which 2,784 have been in open environments (street) and 714 in closed environments (74 in apartments).

The Concepción Arenal Center

The next step was to get them to go to the Concepción Arenal, now a new possibility is opening up, the Mariana Pineda, depending on the needs of the women and their situation.

The Concepción Arenal team tries to resolve the legal and labor demands… of women. In the linking work that the Mobile Unit has previously carried out, the aim is for women to access the Concepción Arenal center to be able to do a more internal work.

At the center they not only collect explicit demands of women such as regularizing a situation or doing a type of training, but also the implicitthe ones that the companions have seen that they need.

“Concepción Arenal has a comprehensive response to the needs of women”

Through the social area of ​​the center appropriate referrals are made. For example, if the request is administrative it is referred to the legal area, if you are looking for a job it is referred to the career guidance team, if you want to follow a therapeutic process it is referred to the psychologist. “In some way, Concepción Arenal has a comprehensive response to the needs of women.”

Concepción Arenal has the objective of help in the medium and long term women who have left prostitution or have emerged from a situation of exploitation. In 2021, the center served 601 women.

Pandora House

The municipal network also has the Casa Pandora protected accommodation and a semi-autonomous apartment. This resource covers the need for protection and lack of resources until women are able to access employment that allows them recover your autonomous life.

Casa Pandora is aimed at providing safe accommodation to women who have left exploitation networks and who, therefore, They need protection in addition to having their basic needs met. It offers a 24-hour service and has a multidisciplinary team.

On the other hand, the semi-autonomous apartment is a exit accommodation towards autonomous living, for women who have completed their recovery process, but who find themselves without income, in an irregular situation or with other circumstances that prevent them from being totally autonomous. This model has been incorporated into the network of gender violence within the couple or ex-partner.

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