The deputy delegate of the Government in A Coruña, María Rivas; and the mayor of Betanzos, María Barral, presided over the meeting of the Xunta Local de Seguridad in which they proceeded to sign the protocol of accession to the VioGén system for the protection of women victims of gender violence.
With the signing of this agreement the municipality of Betanzos, joins the 25 municipalities of the province of A Coruña that are already integrated into the VioGén system. With this new step and with the constitution of the police coordination table, the city of Betanzos completes the agreements necessary for its Local Police to be part of this system.
The deputy delegate expressed her satisfaction with the incorporation of Betanzos stating that “the VioGen system is an essential and necessary tool to move decisively in the protection of victims of male violence.”
In this regard, María Rivas stressed the importance of municipalities being part of this system of surveillance and protection of victims, because as explained “the local administration is the one that is closest to the neighborhood, and therefore, the local police of each city contribute very relevant knowledge and information to work in prevention and detection.”
Currently in the province of A Coruña there are 2,518 victims of gender violence with active cases. “There are 2,518 reasons that force us to continue working to improve their protection, 2,518 women who need police presence and care to feel safe every day and move forward with their lives, many of them with children in their care who also suffer and whose protection is also a priority,” he recalled that on the path to eradicating male violence we must work daily without rest.
María Rivas, said that it is a goal of the Government to continue working for the involvement of local authorities in VioGén, and called on municipalities that are not yet part of the system to take the step, and that among all institutions, we can “continue moving towards the eradication of violence against women”
VioGen enables the Local Police to access police information on active cases of male violence within the municipality. In this way, local police officers follow up and control some of these cases, as a rule, of those considered to be of low or unappreciated risk level.
The subdelegate highlighted the activities carried out under the State Pact against Gender Violence, as another example of the collaboration between the different institutions in this matter, and for which the city of Betanzos received from 2018 a total of 46,260.18 euros within the framework of the State Pact: “These are training, awareness and prevention actions that are carried out at the local level and that are very necessary to advance social awareness.”