Social affairs minister Fina Santiago responded to opposition calls for her to resign on Tuesday by stating that there have been child sexual exploitation cases in Majorca for the past eleven years.
Speaking in the Balearic parliament, Santiago observed that cases have been known about since 2010 and that the Partido Popular did nothing about them from 2010 to 2015*. When the pact government of PSOE and Més (her party) took over in government and at the Council of Majorca in 2015, things started to change. "More cases are now detected precisely because we are working on them."
The PP's Marga Duran had accused Santiago of incompetence and of not taking responsibility for the sexual exploitation cases. She demanded Santiago's resignation, with the minister replying that Duran was "ignorant". There were cries of resignation from all PP deputies.
* In 2010, the pact led by PSOE, of which Fina Santiago was minister for social affairs, was in fact still in government, and the same pact ran the Council of Majorca. The changes occurred following the May 2011 elections.