The balance sheet and challenges 20 years after the entry into force of the Comprehensive Law against Gender Violence are the focus of the Days that the Coordination Unit Against Violence Against Women of the Government Delegation in Melilla has organized this year on the occasion of the 25N and that are being developed this morning the Civil Guard Command Hall of Acts.
This training, framed in the activities that the Government Delegation has scheduled for the month of November, around the International Day for the Elimination of Gender Violence, has had the participation of the Full Professor of the University of Granada and Advisor to the Vice-Rectorate of Equality, Miguel Lorente Acosta - which has had to be carried out telematically after weather issues have prevented their trip to our city - and the journalist of the EFE Agency and head of Efeminista, Macarena Baena Garrido.
The Delegate of the Government, Sabrina Moh, in the inaugural act has stressed that the figures of these 20 years - with 1,284 fatalities due to Gender Violence from January 1, 2003 to today - are alarming but has gone beyond and has stressed that "behind each of these figures, there are lives and there are families broken and, therefore, we have to be aware of we have to continue to put that little bit of sand necessary to continue fighting against this scourge that is real, no matter how much some try to make it invisible or deny it".
The head of the Government Delegation insisted that the holding of days like today’s, “are essential because we have to continue raising awareness in society, we have to continue to make the problem visible in order to eradicate it.”
Moh has stressed the importance of carrying out activities such as the one hosted by the Civil Guard Command, framed within all the activities carried out by the Unit on the occasion of the 25N, “this moment when the negationist and involutionist messages are growing every day and what they do is continue to damage and make invisible a problem that is real”.
The highest representative of the Government of Spain in our city has also had words for the achievements that the law has given such as “the essential legal framework, not only to make visible, but also to sensitize, to protect the victims” or the fact that it has allowed to establish protocols, the creation of specific resources, specialized training… “We must be aware that we have made a lot of progress, but also be aware that we have a lot to go forward,” he said.
“We have to continue serving as speakers, we have to continue helping to raise awareness in society that this problem is real, that this problem exists”, he acknowledged and added that “we have to continue implementing preventive measures, we have to continue accompanying the victims and, above all, we have to continue being aware that this is not an individual problem, but a collective problem, a problem that society has and, therefore, that each and every one of us is necessary to be able to eradicate it”.
Structural violence
The Head of the Coordination Unit Against Violence against Women of the Government Delegation in Melilla, Laura Segura, in statements to the media, explained that they wanted to direct this day “to all the administrations that in some way have a direct relationship with gender violence”. Thus, he pointed out that “practically all institutions and administrations, as well as local entities, are present at the conference”.
Segura has stressed the importance of this type of activities “so that everyone understands how important this reality is”, “one of the main problems we have as a society and that, therefore, we have to face this reality and face it with all the tools of the State”.
The Head of Unit has stressed that gender violence is “a structural violence” and therefore a structural and integral response is needed. In this regard, he added that the Comprehensive Law against Gender Violence, launched 20 years ago, in 2004, “represented that response to violence from all areas, not only from the criminal part.”
“The law represented a response to gender violence from education, prevention, the rights of victims and procedural treatment, among others.” For this reason, throughout this day, a balance has been made of the progress that has followed the implementation of this rule.
Thus, he wanted to make special mention of Ana Orantes, whose murder in 1997 marked a before and after in the approach to gender violence in our country. “When Ana Orantes transmitted in the media the end of the violence from her dungeon, from her prison, which at that time was her home, she unknowingly moved many consciences in this country,” he said.
“While in our country there is only one woman who experiences gender violence, not only a single woman who is murdered, a single woman who experiences gender violence, a single boy or girl who lives in a context of violence, we will have to continue working and we must continue to fight intensively in coordination, in prevention,” he said.
The role of the media
Laura Segura has highlighted the importance of the media and its contribution to “raising awareness, preventing and acting in the fight against violence against women”.
In this line, Macarena Baena, journalist of the EFE Agency and head of Efeminista, has analyzed the mandates that the media had to assume with the entry into force of the law. “Twenty years have passed and it is true that gender-based violence is very visible,” he said, while assuring that the rule is not being complied with.
Baena has exposed ways in which she is helping to generate “that atmosphere of violence” in which many of us, if not all of us, live our daily lives, “as well as making women invisible, which is another way of violating us, or perhaps not contextualizing the information we do”.
Despite this, he pointed out that “the evolution is good” because it has gone from not speaking it and not denouncing it to denouncing it and that it occupies a space in the media. “We have to take another step and train and specialize and know how our information is narrated so as not to re-victimize and do no more harm to the victims,” he said.