A carnival performance in the Spanish city of Torrevieja has sparked controversy over accusations of promoting pedophilia.
Footage showed young girls in the Osadía dancing troupe wearing high heels, stockings, nipple covers and rainbow flags while carrying LGBT flags.
Spanish social media users criticized the sexualization and inappropriate dressing of children.
A Catholic news outlet likened the outfits to those of prostitutes.
The Spanish Christian Lawyers Foundation plans legal action, accusing the city council of allowing such “atrocities” for years.
“It is reprehensible and falls into the category of corruption of minors. We hope that justice will act so that the innocence of children is not lost or used in this way,” president Poland Castellanos said.
However, the mayor defended the performance as satire and criticism, saying the intention was not to hypersexualize the children.
“Carnival is criticism, satire, provocation, fun… and taking out of context and dimensioning an event like the one being criticized is totally out of place,” People’s Party Mayor of Torrevieja Eduardo Dolón said.
“I am sure that the intention of the fathers and mothers of these children was not, at all, to hypersexualise their children with their costumes,” but instead to levy “criticism of the political and social situation in Spain,” Dolón said.
A council member also defended the “groundbreaking” troupe’s freedom to choose costumes and vowed to stand by the performance against “retrograde” critics likened to the Taliban.
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