Mabel Lozano: from Interviú model to anti-trafficking activist

Mabel Lozano: from magazine covers to the crusade against prostitution

A bubbly TV personality who once posed for Interviú, now an award-winning documentarian and producer of a series that portrays the world of prostitution as a hell of trafficking. That is the trajectory at the centre of the controversy: is it a necessary denunciation or an ideological instrument for blaming the client? The series El Castillo is the trigger. For part of the audience, its portrayal is biased: it picks an segarro Colombian victim and a bald, pot-bellied, bad-tempered pimp to reinforce the message. The other half argues that trafficking exists and that the story, however harsh, is legitimate.

The series' narrative: reality or caricature?

The most repeated criticism is that El Castillo builds a Manichean narrative. It is claimed that the fiction uses narrative and aesthetic tricks to present prostitution as a cage no one leaves by choice. The most cited example: the protagonist, a Colombian woman, remains in prostitution coerced by her own family, who live off the money she sends. For critics, this extreme case is presented as the norm, hiding the women who work freely, save money and eventually quit. The other flank of the controversy is the portrayal of the pimp: a bald man with an artificial belly and a bad temper. It is argued that this appearance is chosen to associate ugliness with evil, a device considered dishonest.

Mabel Lozano: from television to activism

Mabel Lozano's leap is the axis of the debate. The former TV personality who posed for Interviú —without explicit nudity, as is often recalled— is today an activist with two Goya awards for documentaries on trafficking. The question hanging in the air: is it a vocational conversion or a career move when the camera stops calling? Some see in her discourse an aesthetic and sarracena drift, comparing her to other public figures of the institutional left. The figure she herself cites —that 38.5% of Spanish men admit having paid for sens— is used as ammunition in both directions: for some, it justifies the crusade; for others, it shows the phenomenon is massive and not limited to a incivil minority.

The client: victim or culprit?

The subtext of the debate is guilt. It is claimed that the series and the activism seek to generate a sense of guilt in the consumer of prostitution, the way landlords are blamed for rent prices. Against this comes the defence of the client: some call for a 'cliente' party (a party representing those who work in and pay for prostitution) that represents both sens workers and buyers, and criticise that the sector is discussed without knowing it. Most women, the argument goes, do it freely; cases of trafficking and exploitation exist and must be prosecuted, but they are not the full picture. The discussion drifts towards the role of the media and production companies: do they inform or indoctrinate?

The series has not finished airing and the debate remains open. If the portrayal of prostitution as hell helps prosecute trafficking, few will object. If it serves to stigmatise those who practise it by choice, the move may backfire. For now, the question has no answer.