The Government delegate in Cantabria, Ainoa Quiñones, thanked the forensic doctor, university professor and government delegate against Gender Violence from 2008 to 2011, Miguel Lorente, for accepting the Menina recognition of the Government Delegation in Cantabria and stressed that “women must thank you for your relentless fight against all the gender inequality gaps” and “your firm defense of equality”.
“You are an ally of the feminist struggle, a feminist and an example to so many men and women of how the cause of feminism, the struggle for equality, the greatest peaceful revolution in the history of humanity, is an alliance that passes from generation to generation to achieve full recognition of the rights of all women,” she said.
Quiñones has pointed this out this Friday in the delivery of the fourth Menina recognition that the Ministry of Equality grants in Cantabria through the Government Delegation in an event held in the María Blanchard Room of the Palace of Festivals of Cantabria. The event was presented by the head of the Coordination Unit against Gender Violence of the Government Delegation, Diana Mirones, and civil and military authorities have attended.
The government delegate has highlighted the role of Miguel Lorente “gutting machismo”. “She has shown so many women that the cause of equality begins by undressing the stereotypes and myths that still exist today in the ideology of so many women who are unable to recognize violence when it begins to show off,” she said, and therefore considered necessary for society people like Lorente with an “unequivocal and firm commitment to the eradication of gender violence.”
After thanking him for the recognition and ensuring that he encourages “to continue working to end machismo and gender violence and promote equality”, Miguel Lorente pointed out that he went into the fight against this scourge 35 years ago because of the “coup de reality” that caused him, in the framework of his work as a forensic doctor, that a woman told him “today my husband has not hit me the usual, today has passed”.
“Gender violence is a social problem and, despite the great path traveled by Spanish society against this scourge, it is still there and more now that there are those who question the progress achieved”, said Lorente, for whom this type of violence starts from machismo “which is not a behavior but is culture”, an established culture that makes “50% of the population see it normally”.
As an example of what gender violence entails, he has pointed out that in Spain there are an average of 300 murders per year, of which about 60 are women murdered at the hands of their partners or are couples, by “men who have nothing to do with habitual crime or any criminal group, but who use violence to subject women to homicide”.
For Lorente, gender violence is “the most terrible violence that we suffer in our country” and now “we live a critical and difficult time” because of the speeches that “question the progress”, and has pointed to the importance of education to continue moving forward and not backward because, he has warned, more than 15% of young people between 15 and 24 years of age in our country consider that “if violence is of little intensity it is not a problem for the relationship”.
“If there is no cultural awareness or education about this type of violence against women, there is no solution,” said Lorente, who has made a firm call to end machismo and start from childhood, through education.
In addition to the handing over of the Menina to Lorente, the act has also recognized people, associations or units that “fight to end the cruellest consequence of machismo, which is the violence that men exert on women in all its forms.”
Thus, recognition diplomas have been awarded to the Consuelo Berges Association of separated and divorced women of Cantabria, to the Violence against Women Court number one in Santander, to the Family and Women Care Unit (UFAM) of the National Police of Cantabria, to the Woman-Minor Team (EMUME) of the Civil Guard of Cantabria and to the coordinator of the Psychosocial Care Network for Victims of Gender Violence in Cantabria, Anabel Perales.
In her speech, the government delegate in Cantabria recalled that so far this year 52 women have been murdered by their partners or ex-partners. To date, in Cantabria there are 1,208 active cases in the Comprehensive Monitoring System of Cases of Gender Violence (VioGén) of the Ministry of the Interior, of which 11 are underage girls, up to 18 years old.
During the event, the singer-songwriter Lucía Gago performed several songs.