Madrid (EFE) , which on Thursday will reach the plenary session of the Congress of Deputies.
The bill promoted by the Socialists advocates creating an aggravated subtype within the crime of sexual assault so that the penalties are higher if there is violence and intimidation, something that most of the government and investiture partners reject, considering that it displaces the consent centrality.
The PP does support the text, which managed to be taken into consideration in the Lower House thanks to the favorable votes of the popular, which will foreseeably return to support the reform in the Commission today and in the plenary session on Thursday.
For the moment, the PSOE has accepted five amendments from the PP, among which the punishment for the distribution of content that incites to commit sexual assaults against minors under 16 years of age, which had been decriminalized, stands out.
The elimination of a connector in the second paragraph of article 178 of the law – the one that defines the crime of sexual assault – or the change of the word “circumstances” to “modalities” has also been approved to refer to the different scenarios that They can occur in a sexual assault, such as violence or annulment of the will of the victim.
However, the popular have warned that there are still points that must be debated and that are likely to enter the text.
The amendments of the rest of the groups, such as those of Unidas Podemos, ERC and EH-Bildu that propose that violence and intimidation are aggravating circumstances, will have a second chance today to be included in the text of the reform.
“Technical” Modifications
The PSOE Equality Secretary, Andrea Fernández, has defended that the modifications included in its text at the request of the PP are of a “technical” nature and do not “substantially” modify its reform or the definition of consent.
The deputy of the PNV Mikel Lagarde agrees with the Socialists that the accepted amendments “are very technical issues that do not affect the substance”, which is why he has voted in favor of the opinion together with the PSOE, the PP and Ciudadanos.
ERC does not think the same, who believes that the pact between the two main parties in Congress is “disappointing” and bad news for women, in the words of its deputy Pilar Vallugera.
On the technicality of the accepted amendments, Marta González, from the PP, has highlighted that “simply modifying a word, a comma or a paragraph already means that it has consequences for the understanding of the text”, so “talking exclusively about technicalities does not It’s very correct.”
pending amendments
In addition to including violence and intimidation as aggravating factors and not as a criminal subtype, the purple ones want to increase the penalties if the aggression is perpetrated by a “person close to the victim”, expanding the circumstance of kinship and cohabitation that the original norm contemplated.
Also if the will of the person attacked is annulled “by any means”, and not only through the supply of drugs, drugs or other substances.
For their part, ERC and Bildu defend withdrawing the terms of violence and intimidation as central to the criminal type of sexual assault, adding the element of annulment of the will of the victim so as not to “displace consent as the defining element between a sexual relationship consensual and sexual assault.
Other amendments are pending, such as those of Más País, JxCat and Ciudadanos regarding the child protection law, to correct an error in this rule regarding the statute of limitations for crimes against the freedom of minors.
For its part, Junts has also presented several amendments aimed at making it difficult for minors to access pornography with measures such as requiring porn platforms to verify the age of their users or installing parental controls on new devices.