Women

Rape and Domestic Violence: The law prohibits rape, including spousal rape, and the government generally enforced the law effectively. The penalty for rape is six to 12 years in prison. The law also prohibits violence against women and sets prison sentences of six months to a year for domestic violence, threats of violence, or violations of restraining orders, with longer sentences if serious injuries result.

On December 5, a provincial court confirmed the conviction for sexual abuse of Jose Angel Prenda, Alfonso Jesus Cabazuelo, Jesus Escudero, Angel Boza, and Antonio Manuel Guerrero, who called themselves “the Wolfpack” and who in 2016 allegedly raped an 18-year-old woman in Pamplona. On April 26, the court found the defendants guilty of the lesser crime, citing insufficient evidence of violence or intimidation, which is required to determine a rape verdict. Feminist associations responded by leading nationwide protests.

According to the government’s delegate for gender violence, as of June 30 partners or former partners were responsible for the deaths of 17 women. According to the General Council of the Judiciary, 49,165 cases of gender-based violence were prosecuted in 2017. The Observatory against Domestic and Gender Violence reported 166,260 complaints of gender-based violence in 2017. There were 39,586 allegations of gender-based violence in the first quarter of 2018. Independent media and government agencies generally paid close attention to gender-based violence.

In September a husband killed his wife in Bilbao, nine months after she had reported him to police for domestic abuse and making death threats. The judge who reviewed the abuse charges refused to issue a restraining order and acquitted the husband of all charges on the grounds that his wife and children were planning to move to a new apartment.

On May 10, the Ministry of the Interior reported a 28.4-percent increase in the number of reported rapes during the first three months of the year. In January the Ministry of Health reported that 6,300 men were imprisoned in 2017 for crimes related to gender-based violence.

A 24-hour toll-free national hotline advised battered women on finding shelter and other local assistance. Police also alerted female victims of gender-based violence of any changes in prison sentences of their attackers.

In September 2017 congress approved the State Plan against Gender Violence, with a budget of one billion euros ($1.15 billion) over five years, to support efforts to counter the problem. On August 3, the government approved the distribution of the first 100 million euros ($115 million) for the year.

The government allocated more than 5.26 million euros ($6.05 million) to combat gender-based violence, trafficking, and childhood sexual abuse within the existing framework of the State Plan against Gender Violence.

Female Genital Mutilation/Cutting (FGM/C): The law prohibits FGM/C and authorizes courts to prosecute residents of the country who committed this crime in the country or anywhere in the world. Doctors must ask parents residing in the country who originate from countries that practice FGM/C to sign a declaration promising their daughter(s) will not undergo FGM/C when they visit countries where the practice is common. Once a family returns to the country, a doctor must examine the girl(s) again and may start legal action against the parents if examination finds that the minors underwent FGM/C during their trip.

The State Plan against Gender Violence includes FGM/C as a form of gender-based violence.

Sexual Harassment: The law prohibits sexual harassment in the workplace, but few cases came to trial. The punishment in minor cases may be between three and five months in jail or fines of six to eight months’ salary. Harassment continued to be a problem, according to media reporting.

Coercion in Population Control: There were no reports of government coerced abortion or involuntary sterilization.

On February 6, the NGOs “Cermi Mujeres” and the European Forum of Disabilities alleged that each year approximately 100 women and girls with intellectual disabilities are sterilized in the country without their knowledge.

Discrimination: Under the law women enjoy the same rights as men. The government generally enforced the law effectively.

Children

Birth Registration: Citizenship is derived from one’s parents. All children born in the country, except children of diplomats and children whose parents’ country of origin gives them nationality, are registered as citizens. When a child does not acquire the parents’ nationality, the government may grant it.

Child Abuse: The law provides protections for various forms of child abuse. Those accused of sexual abuses involving minors receive larger penalties. For example, in cases of sexual abuse, instead of one to four years of jail time, the penalty increases to four to 10 years when the victim is a child. Cases of sexual aggression, which normally receive six to 12 years in jail, are punished with 12 to 15 years in cases involving minors.

As of June 30, either a parent or a parent’s partner killed one minor.

Early and Forced Marriage: The minimum age of marriage is 16 years for minors living on their own.

As of September 15, Catalan police assisted six victims of forced marriage, one of whom was a minor.

Sexual Exploitation of Children: The law criminalizes the “abuse and sexual attack of minors” younger than age 13 and sets the penalty at imprisonment from two to 15 years, depending on the nature of the crime. Individuals who contact children younger than age 13 through the internet for the purpose of sexual exploitation face imprisonment for one to three years. Authorities enforced the law.

The minimum age for consensual sex in the country is 16. The law defines sexual acts committed against persons younger than age 16 as nonconsensual sexual abuse, and provides for sentences from two to 15 years in prison, depending on the circumstances.

The penalty for recruiting children or persons with disabilities into prostitution is imprisonment from one to five years. The penalty for subjecting children to prostitution is imprisonment from four to six years.

The commercial sexual exploitation of trafficked teenage girls remained a problem (see also the Department of State’s Trafficking in Persons Report at www.state.gov/j/tip/rls/tiprpt/).

The law prohibits using a minor “to prepare any type of pornographic material” as well as producing, selling, distributing, displaying, or facilitating the production, sale, dissemination, or exhibition of “any type” of child pornography by “any means.” The penalty is one to five years’ imprisonment; if the child is younger than age of 13, the length of imprisonment is five to nine years. The law also penalizes knowingly possessing child pornography.

There is a registry for sex offenders to bar them from activities in which they could be in the presence of minors.

International Child Abductions: The country is a party to the 1980 Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction. See the Department of State’s Annual Report on International Parental Child Abduction at https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/International-Parental-Child-Abduction/for-providers/legal-reports-and-data.html.

Anti-Semitism

The Jewish community numbered approximately 40,000-45,000 persons. The law provides descendants of Sephardic Jews expelled from the country 500 years ago right of return as full Spanish citizens. In March the Council of Ministers reported that 1,910 Sephardic Jews had obtained Spanish nationality under that law. The Jewish community noted that burdensome financial and administrative requirements such as a self-funded trip to the country made the process more difficult.

The law considers denial and justification of genocide as a crime if it incites violence, with penalties that range from one to four years in prison.

The Observatory for Religious Freedom and Conscience reported that, as of September, there were five instances of religiously motivated aggression targeting Jews (one case of destruction of property, four cases of verbal abuse).

According to Jewish community leaders and the NGO Movement against Intolerance, anti-Semitic incidents included graffiti on Jewish institutions. In February anti-Semitic graffiti with the word “pigs” written in English followed by a sentence in Catalan reading “Get out of the country” was spray-painted on the walls of a synagogue in Barcelona, which now serves as a cultural center and a museum.

In June authorities in the Canary Islands arrested an illegal immigrant from Morocco allegedly for inciting hatred against Jews on Facebook and YouTube.

Government institutions promoted religious pluralism, integration, and understanding of Jewish communities and history, but their efforts did not reach all of the country’s autonomous regions.

Trafficking in Persons

See the Department of State’s Trafficking in Persons Report at www.state.gov/j/tip/rls/tiprpt/.

Persons with Disabilities

The law prohibits, with fines of up to one million euros ($1.15 million), discrimination against persons with physical, sensory, intellectual, and mental disabilities. The government generally enforced these provisions effectively.

The law requires private companies with more than 50 employees to hire persons with disabilities for at least 2 percent of their jobs. In 2016 the NGO Leialta estimated that 81 percent of the companies did not comply with the obligation. In July the government approved a Plan for Decent Work, which warrants labor inspectors to guarantee that companies implement their obligation for persons with disabilities under the law.

The law mandates access to buildings for persons with disabilities. While the government generally enforced these provisions, levels of assistance and accessibility varied among regions.

On October 18, the legislature approved reforms of the electoral law that will allow approximately 100,000 persons with intellectual disabilities to vote.

The Randstad Foundation reported that between January and October, the private sector signed 98,378 contracts with persons with disabilities, 6.3 percent more than during the same period in 2017.

National/Racial/Ethnic Minorities

The Ministry of the Interior reported 416 hate crimes linked to racism (38 percent) in 2016, the most recent year for which data were available, a decrease of 17.6 percent from 2015. The regions of Catalonia, Madrid, Andalusia, the Basque Country, and Valencia had the highest numbers of hate crimes according to the ministry’s data.

In February, ECRI reported that only 45 percent of Romani children finish secondary school.

During 2017 the Federation of SOS Racism Associations recorded 309 complaints, 82 of them were institutional racism, while 46 were perpetrated by law enforcement officials. Most of the cases of discrimination go unreported, due to victims’ lack of resources and lack of trust in the system.

In its report published on February 28, ECRI welcomed the government’s refinement of crime statistics “to obtain a realistic picture” of the extent of hate crimes. The commission noted, however, serious underreporting of hate crimes.

Acts of Violence, Discrimination, and Other Abuses Based on Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity

The country’s antidiscrimination laws prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity, and the government enforced the law. The law penalizes those who provoke discrimination, hate, or violence based on sexual orientation with up to three years’ imprisonment. The law also prohibits denial or disqualification of employment based on sexual orientation and the formation of associations that promote discrimination, hate, or violence against others based on their sexual orientation. The law may consider an anti-lesbian, -gay, -bisexual, -transgender, and -intersex hate element an aggravating circumstance in crimes.

Other Societal Violence or Discrimination

According to the Ministry of the Interior, 1,272 hate crimes were reported in 2016, the latest year for which data were available, a 4.2-percent decline from 2015. Of these, 240 cases involved physical injuries and 205 involved threats. The NGO Movement against Intolerance estimated that 80 percent of hate crimes in the country were unreported.

According to a report from the Observatory for Religious Freedom and Conscience, as of September there were 142 instances of religiously motivated violence (122 such cases in the same period for 2017).