- The Government delegate in Cantabria, Pedro Casares, has inaugurated the II Conference on Gender Violence of the Delegation together with the Secretary of State for Equality, María Guijarro
The government delegate in Cantabria, Pedro Casares, has called for “social rebellion” against gender and vicarious violence, which is a “pending task” of democracy and against which “we must raise our voices” and continue working for its eradication.
Casares urged this Monday in her speech at the inauguration of the II Conference on Gender Violence of the Government Delegation in Cantabria entitled ‘Unity against vicarious violence’, in whose opening the Secretary of State for Equality, María Guijarro, participated and which counted on the inaugural presentation ‘Vicarious violence: when machismo uses childhood as a weapon’ by the prosecutor Gabriela Bravo.
The government delegate has emphasized that gender violence “goes beyond” the 38 women murdered in Spain so far this year, and the 1,333 since 2003 that there are records, and for this reason this Day analyzes the “one of the cruellest forms of violence against women, which is vicarious violence”.
He highlighted the bill promoted by the Government of Spain against vicarious violence to “combat the cruellest face” of male violence.
“Vicarious violence is the greatest expression of the perversion of machismo. Harming women no longer only by humiliating them, insulting them, assaulting them, beating them or killing them, but by using what they love most, their sons and daughters to destroy their lives,” said Casares.
For this reason, he has pointed out that the legal recognition of the crime of vicarious violence is so important. “When we put a name, we make it visible and, when we make it visible, we can all work to combat it, to establish protection and repair mechanisms and this is fundamental,” he added.
In this regard, he has highlighted the coordinated work of the courts, security forces and bodies or specialized associations and entities, a collective work that is “fundamental” because “we cannot allow a single woman who has denounced to be unprotected”.
At this point, the government delegate has detailed that in Cantabria with 1,626 women victims of gender violence protected through the Viogén System, in which he has also warned that there are 120 minors at risk.
“They’re horrifying figures, they’re embarrassing figures. Therefore, the most urgent task that we have in this country after 50 years of democracy continues to be to guarantee the rights, opportunities and freedoms of everyone, so that in this country you can live without fear,” said Casares.
MAKE NO PARTISAN USE OF VICTIMS
For her part, the Secretary of State for Equality has demanded that “the victims of gender violence are not used in a partisan way” and has urged to continue working to achieve the end of male violence because “38 women killed, three minors killed and 20 orphans are figures that cannot be allowed in a democratic state and less in the 21st century”.
“The Government of Spain is convinced that all institutional, social, political and economic agents have to coordinate for the elimination of violence against women,” said Guijarro, who highlighted as a “milestone” the renewal of the State Pact against Gender Violence with “almost a unanimous consensus, except for the extreme right.”
A pact that, he recalled, includes 461 measures and 1.5 billion euros of budget for the next five years and which contemplates “violence that we thought long ago we would never have to contemplate, such as vicarious violence, digital violence and economic violence”.
On the vicarious violence that focuses the Day of the Government Delegation in Cantabria, the Secretary of State for Equality has denounced that this is a violence in which male chauvines “use what women want most to re-victimize them”.
Guijarro has asked “all levels of society and the environments of the victims to help us continue fighting against male violence.” “A democratic state cannot afford it, because without equality there can be no democracy,” he added.
“HIDDEN VIOLENCE”
Prosecutor Gabriela Bravo has addressed this “hidden violence of gender violence” which is vicarious violence. He regretted that children “unfortunately have always appeared as a kind of collateral victim, but they are also victims of gender violence.”
“When the abuser does not achieve his goal, when the abuser does not manage to exercise all the control and power he wants to exercise over the woman, then he uses what he wants most, which can harm her most, which are her children. It is a way to kill them in life,” explained Bravo, who denounced that, “by killing these boys and girls, the aggressors do what they do.
Ensure permanent suffering.”
For this reason, Gabriela Bravo has trusted that the bill on vicarious violence will go ahead because it is necessary that “we begin to name and name things to fight against them” and, therefore, we must “recognize boys and girls also as victims of gender violence, and classify it as a crime as proposed by the bill”.
For the prosecutor, that vicarious violence is “the cruellest manifestation of gender violence.”