Marisol Garmendia: “We also want to raise awareness about the effects of male violence on minors”

17/11/2025

· The Government delegate inaugurates the outdoor exhibition on Paseo Fray Francisco de Vitoria: ‘Growing in Fear’ installed in collaboration with the Commission for the Investigation of Mistreatment of Women

· This exhibition is part of the Purple Autumn campaign promoted by the Government Delegation to raise awareness among citizens in the fight against male violence

· The exhibition will remain until November 28 and picks up 30 original drawings created by sons and daughters of victims of gender-based violence, in which the children themselves portray the situations of abuse experienced in their family environment

The public can already contemplate the exhibition ‘Grow with fear’ that will remain installed outdoors until November 28 at the Paseo Fray Francisco de Vitoria. The delegate of the Government in the Basque Country, Marisol Garmendia, has inaugurated this exhibition composed of 30 original drawings created by sons and daughters of victims of gender violence collected by the Commission for the Investigation of Mistreatment of Women. Garmendia has been accompanied by the Subdelegate of the Government in Álava, Mar Dabán, the Councilor for Equality of the City of Vitoria-Gasteiz, Ana López Uralde, and the promoter of the exhibition, Rosa Monteserín, on behalf of the Commission for the Investigation of Mistreatment of Women.

“This exhibition is an important milestone in the Purple Autumn campaign that this Government Delegation launched a few months ago to raise public awareness in the fight against violence against women,” said Garmendia. This exhibition seeks to raise awareness about the effects of gender violence on minors, those other victims of machismo who often remain invisible.” The exhibition shows the reality of childhood marked by violence and aims to open a space for reflection and social awareness.

Garmendia has recalled that there are already 36 women murdered in 2025 by their partner or ex-partner in Spain and 1,331 since 2003. These crimes leave terrible aftermath, too. Since 2013, 65 children have been killed for gender-based violence against their mothers and 486 children have been orphaned by gender-based violence in Spain.

Exhibitions like this contribute to raising awareness among citizens. “The murder of women just because they are women is a scourge that persists in our society and we have to combine all possible efforts from the institutions and also influencing the education of the youngest to tackle it.”

In addition to this exhibition, the Purple Autumn campaign designed by the Delegation of the Government of Spain in the Basque Country this year has included the screening of two short films produced and directed by Mabel Lozano in Bilbao, the presentations offered by the journalist Macarena Baena at the Deusto campuses in Bilbao and San Sebastián, a round table on the Trafficking of women and girls in Vitoria and will culminate with the delivery of the Menina Awards this Wednesday 19 at the Aquarium in San Sebastián. Garmendia has stressed that all these initiatives “try to help the population become aware of the enormous magnitude of this scourge that compromises the values and coexistence of our society.”

The inauguration was also attended by representatives of the Commission for the Investigation of Mistreatment of Women. The promoter of the exhibition, Rosa Monteserín, explained that “with this exhibition we want to remember the need to intervene with the sons and daughters of women who suffer from gender violence, to reduce the damage that it leaves in them and to prevent it from perpetuating in the next generations”.