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Spain

Although prostitution in Spain is part of an underground economic system, it generates considerable revenue: about 12 to 18 billion euros (EUR) (USD 13,4 to 2,01 billion) each year (Municipality of Madrid, 2016). The scale of this phenomenon, worsened by the 2007 economic crisis, can also be explained by its normalization; it is estimated that 39% of Spanish men bought the services of a prostituted person (APRAMP, 2011), and that some spend around EUR 1,530 (USD 1,714) a year, which is EUR 127.50 (USD 142) per month, for paid sexual acts (Fondation Scelles, 2012). Spain thus is the third largest consumer of prostitution in the world after Thailand and Puerto Rico (Marie-Claire, November 15, 2013). Sex buyers tend to be younger, especially in the brothels of La Jonquera (in Catalonia), a border city to France, where using a prostituted person is considered as a rite of passage to adulthood and proof of hetero-normative virility among certain young adults (Harlé et al., 2013).