“Spain has consolidated itself as one of the countries that promote progress in gender equality. We must continue to move forward, accelerate progress and consolidate each of the achievements reached.”
The Head of the Coordination Unit Against Violence against Women, Laura Segura, appeared before the media this morning to report on the activities that the Government Delegation is going to carry out during these days on the occasion of the commemoration of 8M, International Women's Day.
“As every year, on March 8, we remember the rights acquired, thanks to the struggle of many women, and we reaffirm the need to continue moving towards a truly democratic society, without gender gaps, because Equality is the basis of any system that aspires to be fair,” he stressed.
Segura has stressed that we must keep in mind the challenges that, as a society, we have before us “since the data produced by the numerous studies carried out leave no room for interpretation about reality: the life of women is worse than that of men in all areas of life”.
Something has been pointed out that it is reflected in access, participation and labor promotion, in salaries, in job insecurity, in pensions, in representation in the organs of political, judicial or economic power, in the distribution of domestic work and care, in the availability of time, in the digital gender gap, in the lower presence of students in studies in the field of science, technology, engineering and mathematics, in social, sports and cultural participation, in the predominance of mental health problems, in the feminization of poverty and its serious consequences, in the greater difficulty of access to basic resources to live and in the greatest vulnerability to exploitation and male violence.
1,245 murdered women
Machista violence, he recalled, has meant that 1,245 women have been killed at the hands of their partners or former partners since 2003 and five women have been killed so far this year. To this is added 52 minors since the beginning of counting boys and girls who have been killed by gender-based violence. “There are 438 children who have been orphaned and orphaned by the murder of their mothers,” he said.
“The inequalities and violence suffered by women because they are women persist and are realities that year after year the feminist movement puts at the center of its claims,” she said.
And when we talk about inequality, he warns, “we must also talk about a machista culture, a normalized culture, the most serious attacks or murders are condemned, but there is a mattress of tolerance about the great inequalities that are the origin of the most extreme violence.” Violence, he added, which, in turn, “is an instrument of power, domination and control, to establish the order of an established, unequal and misogynistic system of values.”
“A sea of tolerance that is manifested with the reification of the body of women, with the normalization of prostitution and the exploitation of the body, with the lack of positioning in the face of machista attitudes, the intentional use of language, with the normalization of violence and pornography, with the lack of referents, with the normalization of abuse, with the lack of co-responsibility…”, he said.
With M Women
In her statement to the media, Segura explained that since last Tuesday, a canvas is displayed on the facade of the Government Delegation by 8M “and one more year we joined the voice of women in the streets.”
In addition, tomorrow, coinciding with March 8, the act of reading the manifesto will take place in the Government Delegation itself. “We urge all institutions and entities, public and private, the media and society in general, to join the call for activism on March 8 and publicly make visible the commitment of all institutions and society for equality and the demands of this very significant day,” he said.
The Head of the Unit has also pointed out that, as every year, the Delegation joins and disseminates the institutional campaign launched by the Ministry of Equality on March 8, through the Women's Institute.
The title of this edition is ‘Con M de Mujeres. All the Women. Move.’ Campaign, he explained, “that focuses on that common cause that has mobilized so many women throughout history.” “It reminds us of the way forward and invites us to continue moving forward. It also emphasizes that the demands of 8M are common to all women and stresses that it is essential to move forward hand in hand to achieve common goals.”
“We have made progress, but there is a lot left, that is why we have to move,” she warned and indicated that, in the words of the Minister of Equality herself, this campaign arose after the results of the first survey on the perception of equality and gender stereotypes published by the CIS.
A survey that was a reflection on the need to re-explain why public policies of equality are necessary, why there is International Women’s Day, why we must continue to demand and work to achieve equality between women and men.
“It is a campaign that appeals to the roots, to those women who began to organize publicly, demonstrate, concentrate, vindicate and vindicate themselves throughout the last century and who gave birth to International Women’s Day,” she assured, who has called it an “integrator”, given that it sends a positive message, of empowerment, and that, in addition to looking to the present, “it continues to propose broadening these advances for the future” and that it aims to raise awareness among all citizens that both men and women join the feminist struggle.
Call to society
Laura Segura also referred to the Bureau that was organized yesterday at the UGR Campus, which precisely addressed the achievements achieved and the challenges to achieve an equal society and which has been developed within the framework of the activities that the Delegation develops on the occasion of March 8, while explaining that training activities in prevention and action against gender violence are being developed in the different NGOs, associations and local entities.
Thus, he announced that next Monday the Unit will intervene in a training with the Asociación Caridad Virgen de la Luz and has scheduled a training with the staff of the Temporary Stay and Immigration Center and Unhcr, as well as with the assistance of all organizations, framed in the Protocol of Prevention and Response to Violence against Women of the Humanitarian Care Program, Project Seed, of the Ministry of Inclusion, Social Security and Migration.
“From the Delegation, as every year, we are going to join all the activities that are organized from the Deputy Ministry of Equality of the Government of the Autonomous City for March 8, especially in the Lourdes Carballa awards ceremony and the Reading of the Institutional Manifesto next Friday. As we have been present in the rest of the programmed activities, the Women’s Race, days…”, he indicated.
Finally, she encouraged the whole of Melilla society to join this 8th March “and make every claim of feminism heard forcefully”.