The Head of the Coordination Unit Against Violence Against Women of the Government Delegation in Melilla, Laura Segura, has reported that on April 1 the 24 Hour Crisis Center of our city “opened without informing the citizens and without informing the rest of the agents involved in gender violence” and did so “without any Protocol or, if it existed, it was in a drawer”.
The head of the Unit has made it clear that the Equality Area of the City “is lying.” “They opened without protocol, so they did not send it until April 7 – 6 days after the opening of the Crisis Center.” In addition, the Councilor herself of this matter “affirmed in the plenary that it had not been sent because there was a missing data”, she recalled.
“There was no lack of data, the protocol was a botch,” said Segura, who explained that it had errors in the contact addresses of the Security Forces and Corps, with blank pages and without the specialized organizations in trafficking and sexual exploitation.
“They opened without meeting with the rest of the agents involved, without contributions and without even informing it and they have not been in permanent contact with the rest of the institutions and organizations,” he lamented.
In fact, it has been the Unit “that has done and continues to do the meetings with all the Administrations so that this Crisis Center guarantees the protection of the victims of sexual violence and attends in a unanimous and coordinated way to all the violence that may arise in the city”, he clarified.
To this must be added that “they have not made the citizens aware, nor a single information campaign”. “It was not until May 7, when the Deputy Minister of Equality, with a tweet, hung a link to a website that seems to have been created or is being created, where the contact phone of the Center appeared, a month and eight days after the opening of the crisis center,” he lamented.
Without warning to Police and Civil Guard
Segura has made an account of the facts and, thus, has clarified that up to 3 times the Unit contacted the Equality area of the local government “to be able to make contributions to the protocol that could be being carried out, if it existed, before the opening of this crisis center”, without Segura obtaining any response.
In fact, as he explained, it was not until April 7 - 6 days after the center opened - that the Unit and other agents involved were informed and sent a protocol by mail. At that time, Segura demanded that coordination be given and that the rest of the actors involved in gender violence be counted on, as well as a request to make the rest of society aware of this new 24-hour crisis center, especially when “it is an engine of change and paradigm change in the attention to the victims of sexual violence in our city.”
In fact, it was Laura Segura herself, as Head of the Unit, who offered to hold the necessary meetings in the Government Delegation for this coordination, a proposal that also had no response from the local government.
On April 8, Segura informed the Ministry of Equality of the conditions in which this Crisis Center had been opened and, on the same day, the meeting of the Police Coordination Table was held in the Government Delegation, which, among other topics, addressed the opening of this crisis center and the protocol that had been sent from the Ministry of Equality.
“I would like to point out that none of the members of the Bureau was aware of the opening of this center,” said the Head of Unit, who clarified that the Bureau is composed of representatives of the State Security Forces and Corps and the Local Police of the city of Melilla.
Phone and contacts errors
But what’s more, as Laura Segura said, “even the contacts that were published in that protocol were poorly collected. The contacts of the State Security Forces and Corps, the contacts of the Unit itself, and even personal phones were given.”
A protocol, he added, “that appeared with errata, that appeared with blank sheets and where the different agents involved in sexual violence in our city were not collected, to associations and institutions specializing in trafficking and violence against women and specifically in sexual violence,” he said. Moreover, in that protocol “there was not even an assessment of how to act in cases of trafficking and sexual exploitation, which can be many of the cases that are reported in our city in terms of sexual violence”.
In the words of the Head of the Unit, “it is essential that this protocol, in turn, also includes an annex on the indicators of trafficking that must alert the people who are working on this resource so that they can refer, in turn, to the specialized organizations and administrations that we are working in a coordinated way in the city to, above all, accompany women victims of sexual violence and specifically women who may be in contexts of prostitution, trafficking and sexual exploitation.”
Bad and late
The Head of the Unit explained that on Thursday, April 18, at 2 p.m., a meeting is convened from the Ministry of Equality to address the Crisis Center for a meeting that would take place on the 22nd of that month in the Green Room. “It is the only meeting that has been held from the area of Equality of the City and it was not invited to the agents involved in sexual violence specialists in the city,” he regretted.
Therefore, it was Segura herself who asked for these entities to be involved, while demanding that they carry out awareness campaigns to the citizens “so that the rest of society can know the existence of this resource and that women can know that there is an accompaniment resource in sexual violence and what are the phones they have to call,” she said.
In addition, the Unit was again offered to hold the necessary meetings with the different agents involved and so that all the agents could make the necessary contributions to the protocol.
“On the other hand,” recalled Segura, “I also demand participation in the interinstitutional table so that, in turn, both the workers of the resource itself can coordinate with the rest of the workers who are in this matter in the city.”
On May 3, the day on which the Unit convenes the Interinstitutional Table for Attention and Intervention to the Victims, and to which the head of the Crisis Center is invited 24 hours a day, is precisely the day on which the City refers to the Unit, as a shared document to make contributions. Un document that it is the Unit itself that sends it to the organizations and entities so that they can make contributions to this protocol "that arrives late, that arrives bad and that arrives incomplete, without having had the specialized agents".