Venereological practice and the Patronato de Protección a la Mujer (patronage for the protection of women) in Catalonia during the Franco Dictatorship (1939-1975).

Authors

Florian Grafl, Florian Steger

Published in

Frontiers in public health. Volume 14. Pages 1794738. Epub Jun 17, 2026.

Abstract

Since early modern times, people suffering from venereal diseases have been subject to social stigmatization. In the German Democratic Republic and in other socialist dictatorships, young women who did not conform to the regime's ideology had to undergo medically unnecessary venereological treatments. At the beginning of the Franco Dictatorship in Spain (1939-1975), the Patronato de Protección a la mujer (Patronage for the Protection of Women) was created, aiming to discipline female adolescents. The state Catholic organization had its own medical service. This paper examines the institutions of the Patronato in Catalonia in order to determine if its venereological practice was influenced by Francoist ideology.
We analyzed contemporary publications of the Patronato's national board from the National Catalan Archive in Sant Cugat de Vallès as well as unpublished documents of the Patronato's provincial boards in Catalonia from the Archive of the Spanish Government Representation in Barcelona and the Historical Archive of Lleida. To examine these sources, we implemented the historical-critical method.
At the headquarters of the provincial board of the Patronato in Barcelona, there was a treatment room where venereological examinations were carried out against the will of the patients. The Patronato cooperated with the Hospital de la Magdalena, a closed venereology ward to which women with venereal diseases were forcibly admitted for inpatient treatment until this institution was closed in 1959. Since 1963, young women who had been handed over to the Patronato were isolated in a so-called Centro de Observación y Clasificación (Observation and Classification Centre), where they had to undergo extensive medical examinations to determine their further treatment.
In all three of the institutions examined in this study, examinations were carried out on the basis of questionable medical indications. The patients were young women who had been referred to the Patronato because they had violated the social norms of the Franco regime. This suggests that the examinations were less a part of medical care and more a part of social control mechanisms.

PMID:
42388737
Bibliographic data and abstract were imported from PubMed on 02 Jul 2026.

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