2023-05-27 07:01:00
María* accumulated several years of abuse until that December 7, 2019, in which she decided to end the relationship with her son’s father. That day, “the man hit me in the face in front of my 5-month-old son. He stood in front of me in a fighting position, clenched his hands and told me ‘gonorrhea seems tough’ so I made the decision to go back to my parents’ house”.
This is how the victim told it in a tough case that escalated to the Constitutional Court and set a clear precedent for the treatment of gender violence in all judicial institutions in the country.
According to the Court’s ruling, “the judicial authorities, including the Family Police Stations, must resolve all cases with a gender perspective, and not only those classified as “serious”.
All this after concluding that the Fifteenth Antonio Nariño Family Police Station, in Bogotá, failed in its constitutional duties and “acted negligently, deciding without a differential gender approach.”
A case full of outrages
But this ruling not only ordered a mandatory gender approach, but also established that the woman was the victim of two more types of violence: vicarious, which is the one that was exercised against her son with the intention of violating her, and institutional , which was the one received by State entities for “not paying due attention and imposing countless barriers that caused the plaintiff disproportionate anguish, wear and tear and disappointment in the administration of justice, as well as a fear for his life and that of his son.
It may interest you: There are at least 2,300 women at risk of femicide in Bogotá
Added to this, the Court also assessed that the man constantly engaged in economic violence after threatening the woman with not consigning the maintenance fee for her child if she did not do what he wanted.
“He told me why I was studying if I didn’t have the child’s vaccines or if I didn’t have time to take care of him,” the victim said in an event that the high court classified as “patriarchal” violence, considering that he tried to dominate her through his role as provider.
Thus, the Court revoked an initial decision of that Police Station that refused to accept that there was evidence of mistreatment and ordered that and the other entities handling the case to expedite the investigations for domestic violence and implement the necessary measures so that the man does not put the lives of her and her four-year-old child at risk.
With all this, the sentence questioned why the Police Station did not take into account the clear history of violence that existed in that home. Among them, a forensic report that described brutal beatings that left her disabled for 15 days and a series of proceedings opened for persecutions and sieges of the man against her and her son.
“I feel at risk of femicide and I am afraid that my son could be kidnapped by this man and carry out actions against him for revenge against me (…) the entities do not pay due attention, unfortunately for this reason so many cases of feminicide in our country”, concluded the victim.
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