The Multipurpose Centre for Elderly Services of the Imserso in Melilla, popularly known as Senior Citizens’ Residence, has joined the activities on the occasion of the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women, and wanted to show their firm commitment to equality and against male violence.
As explained by the Territorial Director, Verónica Aznar, today the center has hosted a claim activity in which residents, family and workers “want to be part of the social asset that claims, that supports equality and that cares about the situation of violence against women”.
A scourge, he has made clear, that the center “could not ignore and to which the Residence had to express its concern and the concern we feel about these situations and the support to the victims.”
Thus, for today the center has convened a march to involve residents, workers, relatives and social agents who collaborate with the Residence, and thus make visible their rejection of this scourge suffered by women.
Likewise, we have proceeded to the reading of a manifesto that has been elaborated from the Residence itself, in therapy, and we have proceeded to the inauguration of the exhibition ‘Woman in Africa’, made by a social worker of the Residence “who generously opens a window to the world in Africa, to the Másai culture, a culture where a rather severe patriarchy is exercised, and which reminds us that we must continue to have social awareness and continue to eradicate situations of inequality that continue to be experienced both locally and nationally and internationally”.
“Today residency is also part of this demand and we want, together, to show our social concern,” said Aznar. “We are part of that social asset that moves, that agitates and that cares about violence against women,” he said.
In the words of Aznar, with these activities users feel involved in the claim, since some of them, due to their circumstances, cannot participate in the activities that are organized from the Autonomous City and the Delegation.
Trampling on Fundamental Rights
One of the users, Juan López, has been in charge of reading the manifesto in which it has been pointed out that violence against women “represents the greatest violation of human rights and the trampling of fundamental rights contained in our Constitution.”
In fact, the text read in the center has made it clear that this scourge “constitutes a political and social problem of the first order that requires the decisive action of the public authorities.”
According to the latest quarterly report of the Observatory against Domestic and Gender Violence between the months of April and June of this 2023, a total of 47,063 women were victims of gender violence.
And, in our country, the manifesto continues, “the socialization process that women over 65 have had is unique since they have had to live different sociocultural and political contexts, conditioned by religious beliefs.”
A time, he said, in which women “were subordinate to men and in which violence against women was considered a private matter, which should remain within the family. This has caused, among other factors, that it is especially complex for these women to seek any kind of help and that their situation comes to light.”
The manifesto states that it is necessary to establish improvements in the guidelines of action for the prevention, detection, attention, coordination and protection of older women victims of gender violence, as a particularly vulnerable group, as a strategy to respond and increase the fight against gender violence.