Spain has been a global leader on LGBTQ+ rights since 2005, when it became one of the first countries in the world to legalise same-sex marriage. The current government has passed some of the world's most progressive trans rights legislation. Public acceptance is high.

Spain is rated a 'full democracy' by the EIU. Press freedom is good, though media ownership concentration is a concern. Political tension over Catalan independence has been significant but is managed through democratic institutions.

Spain ranks well on women's rights. Abortion is legal on request up to 14 weeks. Gender-based violence legislation is strong. A 2023 sexual consent law ('only yes means yes') was landmark. Women are well-represented in government and the judiciary.

Spain has a robust, independent legal system operating under EU law. Corruption has been a documented problem but institutional enforcement is active. Spain scores 0.71 on the WJP Rule of Law Index (25th of 143) — solid, though below the Northern European leaders.

Not every country is measured on every value. Where the public data doesn't exist, we'd rather tell you than fill the gap with a guess — and Spain is one of those cases.

The figure on our other country pages comes from the US Department of Labor's yearly review of what governments are doing about the worst forms of child labour, and that review covers the 131 countries which hold trade preferences with the United States. Spain is not one of them, so it is never assessed. The obvious alternative doesn't help either: the ILO and UNICEF's global estimates, published in June 2025, are built on household surveys in 107 countries and leave out Europe and Northern America entirely — in their own words, "because of data limitations".

That absence is not the same as zero. The ILO's regional estimate puts around 2.3 million children aged 5 to 17 in child labour across Europe and Northern America, against under 1 per cent of children in high-income countries as a group. No national figure is published inside that. So the honest summary is that the record here is probably good and definitely unmeasured.