55 macho murders in 2019, the highest figure in five years | Society
The first one was called Rebeca Alexandra Cadete and was only 26 years old. She was stabbed by her boyfriend. His five-year-old son was left without a mother. I had never denounced. The last victim of the year, Yulia S., 41, leaves three other orphaned children. Nor had he given the alarm, as in an overwhelming majority of cases. There are 55 women killed by their partners or ex-partners in a year, 2019, which closes as the most lazy since five years ago. You have to go back to 2015 to find a higher number of victims. In addition, three dead children are added to the women, 34 since they were included in the official count.
Mortal Victims of Violence
of genre
2008 was the year with more women killed
Beginning in 2013, the deceased minors
Source: Government Delegation for Violence
of genre.
Mortal victims of gender violence
2008 was the year with more women killed
Beginning in 2013, the deceased minors
Source: Government Delegation for Gender Violence.
Mortal victims of gender violence
2008 was the year with more women killed
Beginning in 2013, the deceased minors
Source: Government Delegation for Gender Violence.
It is still too early to fully understand the reasons for that upturn and it remains to be seen if it becomes a trend in later years. Gender violence is a complex and multi-cause phenomenon, but different specialists consulted already warn that, together with the lack of planned measures pending development, one of the causes that have influenced this increase is Vox denial speech, which ensures against the existing institutional consensus for years both inside and outside Spain that "violence has no gender". "You can not say that the increase is due exclusively to the messages against the protection of women launched by the extreme right but it is clear that it is a factor that has influenced," said coroner Miguel Lorente, former government delegate for the violence of gender.
The vast majority of women killed, as happened with Yulia S. or Rebeca Alexandra Cadete, they never went to ask the Administrations for help. In this last year, four out of five (80%) had never denounced. It is the highest percentage since 2012. But the system also failed the other 11 fatalities who did warn of the danger they were in and, in some cases, were even included in the police and judicial protection system.
In 2019 20% of those killed they had denounced their aggressor
Source: Government Delegation for Violence
of genre.
In 2019 20% of those killed they had denounced their aggressor
Source: Government Delegation for Gender Violence.
In 2019 20% of those killed they had denounced their aggressor
Source: Government Delegation for Gender Violence.
2019 has been the year in which exceeded 1000 killed since there are official data - they began in 2003 and already add up to 1033 - and also the anniversary of a pioneer law, the Organic Law of Integral Protection Measures against Gender Violence, which turns 15 and allowed the number of murdered to be reduced - in the first years of counting around 70 annual victims were around and in the latter they are around 50 - and the social perception of a crime that was considered an intimate issue that was fixed inside the door has changed. And it is also a year that will be remembered for the arrival at the national institutions of a party with an ultra-right ideology, Vox, which breaks the institutional unity, demands to repeal the laws that protect women and demands to withdraw the funds that are dedicated to combat the murderers.
The aggressions pending beyond the couple
There is another pending victim accounting, which the Government began to prepare in October 2018. Women are murdered beyond the partner or ex-partner. A list that includes cases such as Marta Calvo, Diana Quer or Laura Luelmo, who were killed by strangers after sexually assaulting them. This extension complies with the Istanbul Convention, a European agreement that Spain signed as early as 2014. “We must start talking about feminicides, about the killing of women because they are. Thus, we place them as crimes of the State and all of them would be treated legally and socially as victims of gender-based violence, ”says magistrate Lucía Avilés.
“Vox's performance translates into the fact that the victims look with greater distrust on the institutional protection that can be offered to them and the aggressors see their behavior reinforced,” values the magistrate and founder of the Association of Women Judges Lucía Avilés, who asks for a “ deep and objective analysis to determine all causes ”of the last rebound. “The speeches against the protection of women generate doubts in the victims and in the judicial and police protection devices and greater risk situations, but it would not establish a situation that has a direct effect because the murdered women are only the tip of the iceberg of what happens ”, Considers the director of the Women Foundation, Marisa Soleto.
If the endowment of Pedro Sánchez, scheduled for January 7, is finally carried out, the new Coalition Government will have to deal with the outstanding issues that have accumulated during the current period, such as implementing the measures of the State Pact against Gender Violence, Approved in 2017 and almost undeveloped. This parliamentary agreement includes, among others, measures focused on combating, on the one hand, the lack of complaints and on the other, guaranteeing protection for those who did dare to take the step.
“80% of those killed have never reported but we can find 100% of women in the health system and from there develop a global strategy to protect them,” adds Lorente. The pact foresees from the generalization of the sanitary screening - that the doctors can apply measures and questionnaires to detect and fight the violence - to the work of help of the City councils before the women denounce, to facilitate that once safe they can do it.
Soleto also emphasizes the other side of that same reality: those who did dare to denounce and are still dead: “If we had managed to protect them throughout all these years, we would be talking about more than 200 living women. It is the biggest failure of all this time. ”
Improve the courts
In addition to stressing that the emphasis should be placed on education for equality, since boys and girls are young, Judge Lucía Avilés asks that in 2020 “the legal instruments that the law gives” be expressed and the provision of more media in the courts such as forensic valuation units, which help to better detect the risk of victims with teams of different specialists. They were already provided for in the 2004 law and still apply in less than 1% of cases, recalls Aviles. “Most cases are addressed in mixed courts, which have to review from a foreclosure to a case of sexist violence. And there is an unequal distribution of judicial resources, the people's courts are in most cases collapsed with respect to those of the capital. ”
The minors are also considered victims and Soleto asks for “more protection” than the current one. “We have seen in too many cases that the system does not give an adequate response, especially to women who have children,” recalls the head of the Women Foundation. He insists, as the Ombudsman, on a maxim that has not completely entered the courts: No abuser is a good father.
