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Spain joins a slew of countries, including Sweden and the UK, upgrading their sexual assault laws to include a wider and more progressive definition of rape.
When it comes to consent, there should be zero room for doubt. To ensure that that’s the case, the Spanish government is issuing a new consent law which classifies all non-consensual sex as rape.
The decision comes months after thousands of Spanish citizens took to the streets to protest the unjustly lenient sentencing of a group of five men accused of gang raping an 18-year-old girl in 2016.
The men, who call themselves ‘the wolf pack’ (whatever you say guys), filmed themselves having non consensual sex with their victim, who remains in obvious but silent distress throughout the video. The gang’s defence team were able to argue that her evident noncompliance was not a specific request to stop. Given that Spain’s current laws do not classify sexual abuse or assault as rape unless violence or intimidation is used, and no obvious physical violence is carried out in the video, ‘The Wolf Pack’ were acquitted of rape.
People were understandably incensed, with this case just one example of the injustices wrought by the misclassification of rape in Spain, and protesters demanded immediate changes to legal procedure.
Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez was able to answer those demands on Tuesday when he announced that the new bill, whereby sex without consent would be considered rape, had been passed by parliament. The law means that prosecutors will no longer have to prove a violent offence in conjunction with a rape offence. Any penetration without consent is now punishable by a minimum of four and a maximum of ten years in jail, with this punishment increasing in cases of aggravated rape or if the victim is the rapist’s wife or former partner.
