MADRID • Spain’s lower house of parliament on Thursday passed a bill that qualifies all non-consensual sex as rape in response to social outrage after the so-called Wolf Pack case gave momentum to the women’s rights movement in the country four years ago.

The government-proposed legislation, known as “Only yes is yes,” merges the crimes of sexual abuse and sexual assault into the same type of crime qualified as rape, and victims will no longer have to prove violence or resistance.

The legislation, which has been in the works for more than two years and was approved by 201-140 votes with 3 abstentions, still faces an upper house vote and will enter into force if approved.

Combating gender violence has been high on the minority leftist government’s agenda since the “Wolf Pack” case, in which five men referring to themselves by that name were jailed for the lesser crime of sexual abuse in 2018 after gang-raping a young woman at the Pamplona bull-running festival in 2016.