“Faced with the challenge of achieving a society free of violence against women, we all have a great responsibility. Our mission is to accompany the victims and to express our absolute rejection of violent attitudes.”
The Head of the Coordination Unit Against Violence Against Women of the Government Delegation in Melilla, Laura Segura, who appeared before the media today, stressed that, against gender violence “all agencies and institutions have to row together and in the same way”. “We need the commitment of society as a whole. Because the commitment has to be shared,” he said.
The Head of the Unit has said that the Delegation, one more year will join the commemoration of the "International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women". “One more year we must remember that gender violence does not cease and this Delegation of the Government of Spain declares its firm commitment to continue combating violence against women in all its manifestations and its most resolute condemnation of attitudes and acts of violence against women on the grounds of sex or gender, as well as its solidarity with the victims,” he said.
In the words of Segura, gender violence “is one of the most terrible expressions of inequality between men and women that exist in our society”, and he recalled that “it is rooted in a patriarchal and sexist system that has permeated society, culture, the economy, and institutions throughout history; and it has been and continues to be one of the cruellest manifestations of imbalance and subordination in the relations of power between men and women”.
Not only that, “it constitutes a serious violation of fundamental rights, in particular, the right to life, freedom, equality, dignity and security,” he added.
“Despite the great advances that we are making as a country in the fight against gender violence, violence against women and their sons and daughters continues to devastate our reality, a consequence of systemic discrimination, which for its elimination needs the commitment of all public institutions and society as a whole,” he warned.
Therefore, it has ensured that the involvement, coordination and action of all institutions, administrations, entities, agencies “with the unique commitment of the construction of an egalitarian society and free of violence against women” is indispensable.
Equal education
“We must continue to extend the scope of action and attention to all the violence suffered by women because they are women, beyond the violence that occurs in the context of the couple or former partner,” he said, referring to sexual exploitation, sexual assault, trafficking in women and girls for the purpose of sexual exploitation, forced marriages…
She has assured that the eradication of violence against women cannot be achieved without addressing the social attitudes that tolerate or justify it. “Reducing the social acceptability of this violence is fundamental to preventing it and requires a change in the culture, attitudes and machismo behaviors that promote it,” he said.
As a key challenge, he referred to the breaking of silence in the face of this violence, the clear and unanimous stance against male violence and the end of the impunity of those who carry it out.
For this reason, he said, “it is necessary to continue promoting measures to prevent violence against women, promoting education in values of equality and respect from the earliest stages, the co-education of girls and boys at all educational stages, and improving the resources for assistance and protection of victims.”
52 women killed this year
In her speech, Segura has broken down the data on gender violence. Thus, since 2003, 1,237 women have been killed by male violence, 52 women so far in 2023.
Since the children began to be counted in 2013, 49 children have been killed, one this year. In addition, male violence has left 428 orphans since 2013. 51 people orphaned so far in 2023.
A terrible reality that has ensured that only the tip of the iceberg. “Gender violence is still hidden and hidden, around 75% of gender violence is carried out with total impunity because it is not reported and the vast majority of women who suffer it and their sons and daughters are not arriving,” she lamented.
Segura also recalled that outside the couple or former couple “silence also hides in the other violence that is exercised on women, much more invisible and that are also gender violence”. Thus, it has exposed that sexual violence disproportionately affects women and is a form of violence against women that is widespread in society. According to the 2019 Macrosurvey on Violence against Women, 13.7% of women living in Spain aged 16 or over have suffered sexual violence throughout their lives.
“These figures show a reality, a structural violence towards half of the population of our country, which prevents the full freedom, equality and security of women and their sons and daughters, due to the exclusive fact of being women,” he said.
These are terrible figures, so he has stressed that the key is to make this reality visible to society in order to continue advancing in its eradication, “a reality to which we cannot allow the denial speeches that are jeopardizing everything achieved and that endanger the lives and freedom of women,” he warned.
“We cannot allow ourselves to stop or backtrack, we can only move forward and do so with a single objective, that inequality disappears from our society and that men and women live in equality and freedom and look at us in a single space, that of respect, understanding as a fundamental principle the right to a life free of male violence,” he stressed.
“Now Spain is another”
Laura Segura has announced that, for this 25 N, the Ministry of Equality, through the Government Delegation Against Gender Violence has launched the ‘It’s Over’ campaign. Now Spain is another’.
A campaign that aims to show the change that Spanish society has experienced over the years in terms of impunity for acts of male violence, breaking with silence and accompanying and providing reparation to the women who have suffered it.
“A society that, despite everything, has evolved in the fight against male violence and is no longer willing to tolerate the lack of consent,” he stressed.
“The campaign pays tribute to the artist María Jiménez through her song “Se acabó” and her feminist message and hope when she sings now my world is another”, she explained and pointed out that the campaign has counted on the participation of women survivors of the Ana Bella Foundation to help battered women.
Violet suitcases
Since September, the Government Delegation has already started with training and awareness activities in different areas and held the conference "Training in Gender Violence for Security Forces and Bodies" on November 14.
In turn, since November 14, the Violet Suitcases project has been launched for another year. “These are two violet suitcases with 60 books each, with children’s and youth readings to promote equality, to break with gender stereotypes and for the prevention of male violence,” he said.
Suitcases that have begun to travel through the Primary and Infant Education and Secondary and Baccalaureate centers. “In collaboration with the Education Program Unit of the Ministry of Education and Professional Training, we have developed a quadrant so that suitcases can travel, they can fly through all the centers of Melilla, staying in each center for two weeks,” he said.
Each suitcase is composed of two copies of each of the books, an explanatory guide of the contents of each reading, a distribution by ages and levels of the different copies and a travel journal towards Equality where the activities that have been carried out during the weeks in which the suitcase remains in each space and the opinions and valuations, above all what these readings and the violet suitcases have contributed.
The first centers to which the suitcases have traveled, are the ‘Pedro de Estopiñán’ and the ‘Juan Antonio Fernández’ and in two weeks they will leave on this trip to other centers. “A project that we hope will contribute to the progress towards a society in Equality,” he said.
Act Meninas
Continuing with the activities organized by the Delegation, Segura has announced that this Thursday, at 10 a.m. in the IES ‘Virgen de la Victoria’, will take place the act of delivery of the Recognitions “Meninas 2023”, granted to people or entities distinguished by their commitment in the eradication of gender violence.
Honorable mentions will be awarded to the ‘León Solá’ Centre, the NGO Fiet Gratia and the Melilla Penitentiary Centre. And the Meninas recognitions of this year 2023 will be for Laura Santa Pau, Chief Prosecutor of the Prosecutor’s Office of Melilla and Specialist Prosecutor in Gender Violence, Trafficking in Persons and Foreigners; for Salvador Vargas, Corporal 1 of the Civil Guard and Head of the Team of Crimes Against the People of the Organic Unit of Judicial Police of the Command of the Civil Guard of Melilla; and for the Family and Woman Unit of the Provincial Headquarters of National Police in Melilla, Judicial Brigade.
On the same day, but at 8:00 p.m. in the Bachelor’s Room of the UGR Campus, on the occasion of the “International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women”, a colloquium will take place on gender violence and the presentation of the book “Peace in Search of Innocence” with Helena Cueto, author of the book as rapporteur.
An activity organized by the Coordination Unit against violence against women and the Melilla Association for UNESCO and in which the Faculty of Education and Sports Sciences of Melilla and the Association of Women Entrepreneurs of Melilla “Activa Charter 100” collaborate.
Manifesto and minute of silence
As for Friday, at 11 a.m. the reading of the institutional manifesto against gender violence and tribute to the victims will take place in the Delegation of the Government of Melilla.
And at 12 noon, the representatives of the Delegation will join, as every year, in reading the institutional manifesto against gender violence at the door of the Assembly Palace.
Not only that, the Delegation, as every year, will join all the activities that are organized from different areas of the city and, from the Unit, “we want to encourage Melillense society to join these initiatives and active positioning against gender violence.”
School contest
Finally, the Head of the Unit referred to the “Children and Youth Competition for Equality and Against Gender Violence”, whose deadline for submission of works ends today.
The awards ceremony will take place in the same Government Delegation in Melilla on the afternoon of Thursday, November 30. And the jury’s decision will be communicated to the educational centers whose students are awarded.
“This contest, consists of a prevention and awareness campaign against gender violence aimed at students from all educational stages of all educational centers in Melilla,” Segura recalled.