The Wall of Flesh

One of the modern reforms instituted by Spain's short-lived (1931-36) democratic republic was the outlawry of prostitution. When Dictator Franco seized power, he reinstituted prostitution, set a minimum age of 23 for admission to the profession, charged the police with responsibility for seeing that prostitutes were registered and had regular medical checkups. But Franco's police, tough on politicals, are lax with prostitutes: only 13,000 cardholders are on their books, but an estimated 100,000, many of them under 23, ply their trade freely. In many of the most elegant bars and cafes of Madrid, there are now so many women for hire that respectable caballeros no longer take their wives or fiancees to such places after 7 p.m. Spain has a frightening venereal-disease rate: some 200,000 cases annually in public dispensaries, an unknown number treated privately or not at all.

Alarmed by the increasing number of prostitutes passing through the University of Granada's Clinical Hospital, tall, bicycle-riding University Chaplain Father Jose Garcia two years ago set up a rehabilitation program which proved so successful that he began a nationwide crusade. Father Garcia fired off a circular to government ministers, church leaders and Roman Catholic intellectuals, denouncing legalized prostitution as "the major shame of the nation." The appeal brought only one response, but an important one: in Madrid, Jesuit Father Jose Maria Llanos, spiritual counselor of the Falange Youth Front, reprinted Father Garcia's circular in the Falangist daily Arriba, followed it up with a stinging column accusing Spain's upper classes of favoring prostitution as a means of protecting their own virtue. "The best people," said Father Llanos, "want to assure the beautiful innocence of their sons and daughters by means of a very original barricade, one constructed of the souls and bodies of thousands of poor women." Concluded Llanos: "This wall of flesh must go."

With Father Llanos' backing, Garcia got Primate of Spain Enrique Cardinal Pla y Deniel behind his campaign. He obtained the cardinal's signature, together with those of the Minister of Justice, the President of the Supreme Court and other top-ranking citizens, to a memorandum on prostitution listing a dozen tragic case histories, including that of a 14-year-old girl sold into white slavery by her mother for 700 pesetas ($17.50). The memorandum was sent to Franco, who replied through channels that he had "taken note" of it. Last week Franco ordered his Minister of Justice to solve the problem "with all possible speed."

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