The Spanish Church’s fight against human trafficking and prostitution

Catholic agencies, and individuals, are taking to the streets.

For many years, Nacho Sanchez spent his Saturday evenings in a unique way.

While most men visiting the Camp Nou area of Barcelona on a weekend are heading to watch the city’s famous FC Barcelona soccer team in its iconic stadium, Sanchez had other ideas.

Red light at night in Barcelona. Credit: Alamy.

The sex workers in the area could be forgiven for seeing him approach them, with his wedding ring on display, and drawing cynical conclusions about the sanctity of marriage and fidelity in Spain.

They might conclude that Sanchez was among the men who have led Spain toward one of the highest prostitution consumption rates in the world.

But Sanchez goes to the city’s red light district with other intentions.

When he can, he approaches with a question. He’ll approach them with picture of the Virgin Mary and ask: “Have you seen this woman?”

A bit of a dad joke, perhaps. But from there, he says, he aims to to turn talk toward the Gospel, and to encourage the women to leave the lives they were living. Of the 200-some women (and some men) he has approached, he reports a successful outcome more than 10 percent of the time. And while recent health issues have prevented him from being able to go out to the Camp Nou area late at night, he is still helping former prostitutes transition into a different way of life.

“Right now, I focus on catechesis for two boys of a former prostitute, aged 16 and 18. Every week I meet with them. She left prostitution five to six months ago but lives with a trafficker,” Sanchez told The Pillar.

His work is at the intersection of the Church’s fight against prostitution and human trafficking in Spain. And while Sanchez’s approach is by no means conventional, he says he is aiming to help people escape difficult circumstances.

A mutating cancer

Human trafficking is a modern problem that continues to grow and mutate. The Santa Marta Group, a Catholic organization fighting the issue, estimates that there are 50 million victims worldwide. The Church has regularly condemned it, and Pope Francis called it “a global phenomenon that claims millions of victims.”

“Trafficking in human bodies, the sexual exploitation even of small children and forced labour are a disgrace and a very serious violation of fundamental human rights,” the late pontiff said.

In Spain, like much of the Western world, trafficking is a serious problem. In 2024, the Guardia Civil and the police freed 1794 victims from trafficking networks, including 32 minors. In 2023, this number was 1466.

Concepción Rodríguez, head of Caritas Valencia’s “Jere Jere” project offering comprehensive care for female victims of gender-based violence, including trafficked and sexually exploited women, told The Pillar that trafficking is a “a poorly understood issue, often shrouded in prejudice and misconceptions.”

Rodríguez said traffickers “make sure to keep the women isolated and under coercive measures,” which includes threatening deportation – as many of the women are from Latin America – and violence against family members. In many cases “women are not aware that they are victims or of their rights,” she said.

“The majority of women who are victims of trafficking for the purpose of sexual exploitation come from situations of violence and social and economic vulnerability in their countries of origin, which makes them easy targets for traffickers,” she said.

“These women are confined in apartments, venues, or on the street under surveillance. They must be available 24 hours a day, seven days a week, with barely two hours of free time per day. From the percentage they earn from services, they must pay for accommodation and living expenses,” she added.

For Rodríguez, meaningful change will only happen when there is societal recognition that “sexual exploitation occurs due to the widespread demand from men.”

Sanchez’ experience suggests that the figure of the trafficker can be complex, and that traffickers are rarely the kind of burly criminal he was expecting.

“When I started my ministry at Camp Nou, I was afraid pimps would come at me with knives to stop me from bothering the girls. But at Camp Nou, that figure of the pimp doesn’t exist anymore. It’s the girls themselves – almost all from South America.

“For example, a girl from Venezuela who had been on the streets for years knows someone in her hometown and says: ‘I’ll pay for your breast surgery, a plane ticket, and here’s a street spot, but you owe me 15,000 euros.’ That’s the new form of trafficking. It’s still trafficking – if they catch them, it’s illegal,” he said.

Jesús de Alba is the co-founder of the Asociación Bocatas, which serves the homeless people of Madrid by giving them food and seeking to engage them in conversation. He told The Pillar that through his work on the streets of Madrid, he’d come to understand trafficking as a “subworld.”

“Human trafficking is a subworld within the marginal world, very specific, extremely sordid, and very hidden. It is not evident at all. It’s not like poverty or homelessness, which, if you have eyes and a little sensitivity, you can notice,” he said.

De Alba also drew a comparison to the way traffickers view people to what Pope Francis often termed the “throwaway culture” in Western society – the idea that society discards those, such as the old, disabled or marginalized, who are deemed “useless”.

“Trafficking destroys people because it doesn’t treat them as human beings; it treats them as ‘you get what you deserve.’ And that makes it difficult to care for the human element. Our society produces human ‘waste’ that could also be considered part of human trafficking because it uses people, and if they have no utility, they’re discarded – they remain outside the system,” de Alba said.

Starting a new life

The work of the Church aims not just to support the victims, but also help them establish a new life, experts told The Pillar. Caritas in Spain, for example, annually supports 2,724 women in 10 different projects throughout the country.

The Jere Jere project offers personal outreach to women, training and personal development workshops, and helping them understand their legal rights.

When it comes to trying to escape sexual exploitation, Rodríguez said the women “face a lack of viable alternatives.”

“Women need access to income and housing that will enable them to undergo the process of emotional and psychological healing, training, and social and professional integration,” Rodríguez said.

“The key is for women to have real and swift access to support and assistance that allows them to begin to build an expectation of improving their lives within their migration project,” she added.

For Sanchez, an important part of his ministry happens after the initial encounter. “Today, about 25 people [he has worked with] have left prostitution. I help them find jobs, with paperwork, and offer God’s invitation. Some accept, some don’t. Most important is helping them leave this ‘profession’ which is really slavery,” he explained.

“Helping people leave prostitution isn’t about Camp Nou – it’s about accompaniment. Sure, you need to go to Camp Nou, but one second there is worth 2,000 hours of accompaniment,” he added.

Sanchez has helped both female and male prostitutes. He often invites those who have left the streets to spiritual retreats where they can share their experience..

“I’ve witnessed miracles – people changing gender presentation, stopping hormones, removing implants, finding work, getting baptized. For example, a young guy with breast implants attended an all-men Emaús retreat and later left prostitution and got a job. I’ve seen many miracles,” Sanchez said.

De Alba said that bringing women back from a life of prostitution is not easy, particularly with the proliferation of websites such as OnlyFans where the online persona merges strongly with the person “to the point where the person disappears and sometimes only the persona remains”.

“Doing therapy to bring the person back and recover what is genuinely human is a huge psychological and psychiatric effort. Therefore, the whole topic of prostitution has changed somewhat, but it’s still a very sordid world,” he said.

For Sanchez and de Alba, their faith is what drives them to the streets to help.

De Alba said that the Church’s work supporting victims of trafficking, prostitution, and the myriad of other social problems it confronts, is a vital and counter-cultural way of carrying on Jesus’ message of caring for the weak. A message that “was absolute madness for the Greek and contemporary cultures of Jesus’ era.”

Across Spain, the victims of human trafficking and sexual exploitation continue to suffer, mostly silently, according to Sanchez and de Alba. But, they say, the Church continues to find practical ways to be there with them in their suffering, offering practical, psychological and moral support and helping them integrate into society.

But most of all, according to de Alba, the Church points these people towards the “God who focused on those who suffer the most and lifted them up.” This is not only a beacon of light in the darkness, he said, but a light that can illuminate lives – and the entire world.