2024-08-22 06:30:09
BarcelonaOnly one of the fifteen women killed by male violence this year in Catalonia has filed a complaint against their abuser. If the calculation includes the history since 2011, when the Generalitat began to register them, only 10% of the 139 victims have taken the step of taking the man who should be the victim to the courts or the police of his killer. History repeats itself in the case of the last two victims, a woman from Castellbisbal and another from Rubí, killed by the same man – ex-partner and partner, respectively – who is number two of the National Police Catalonia until it was killed. retired last year.
Considering the complexity of gender-based violence, under-reporting is particularly high, much more so than other crimes. Only 18.4% of Catalan women who feel violated file a complaint, according to the 2021 Ministry of the Interior survey, a figure that drops to 12% in the case of sexual assaults. What explains this minor complaint? Experts agree that the causes are multiple. There is a part of shame or stigma, that does not want others to consider as a victim, in addition to women who do not know that beating or insulting is violence. Júlia Humet, a lawyer specializing in gender-based violence and member of the Némesis law firm, points out that, in general terms, abuse is a process that lasts for years – an average of ten years .
In a shelter, where women take refuge for a while after breaking up with the abuser, the stories repeat themselves: they are women who feel alone, even isolated from their social network, and who you without choosing where to live with dignity will not feel. safe to take action. It is “neglect” in the judiciary, the police and the institutional system, according to the scientist Alba Alfageme, who admits that, despite the efforts made in general policies and the effectiveness of specific laws against gender violence, there is still “a lot of work to be done” in improving resources and organizational circles to “prevent women from repeating”. It is about reinforcing the idea that “reporting can really be a way out” of the situation of violence, emphasizes this professor, who also specializes in the treatment of survivors of sexual violence.
Walk away without harming the predator
The relationship between the victim and the victim in this type of violence is so important that it is also a factor that must be taken into account when understanding the missing reports. Men are often partners and also parents of children, and many women avoid reporting attacks to “not hurt him”, indicates Alfageme, who explains that women’s desire is more “to stop receiving blows than because the man went to prison”. Although there is no specific pattern among the victims, the “justification and appropriateness” of violent acts, strengthened by centuries of patriarchy, is also highly measured, which makes both women and those who it’s around them they notice, wrongly, that the tyrants “they can change. “.
On the contrary, official data contradicts the common perception that the complaint is a cold book. Thus, according to the General Council of Justice (CGPJ), eight out of ten sentences for male violence end in conviction for the perpetrator. “Every time we don’t report is a failure of the system, because behind a woman there are thousands of crimes that are hidden”, Humet pointed out.
In the same statistics of the judiciary it is also shown that the environment of the victims maintains a very low profile and that, of all the complaints presented, less than 2% are from relatives or friends. For Alfageme, this is a very close topic: getting neighbors, friends or work colleagues to “participate and not look the other way”. However, he emphasized that the focus around gender-based violence must be on men and the concept of masculinity. The responsibility for not reporting or staying out of a violent environment cannot fall on women, experts stress.
Sexual violence is variable both in the case of the victims and in the case of the victims who suffer it, and there are no boundaries save for race, age, religion, origin or level of education or profession. In the double crime of Vallès, the killer was Juan Fortuny, a retired commissioner of the National Police who was second in command in Catalonia. When he retired, his colleagues paid tribute to his 44 years of public service. Although there is no regional research on the relationship between the police and gender-based violence, a report by Argentine researcher Maria Hereñú on thirteen crimes committed by officers in the Buenos Aires region between 2015 and 2017 points to the burden of male toxicity, The masculine self-perception of the body or the construction that what is feminine implies weakness and weakness. Alfageme, who is an advisor to the Department of the Interior, said that, although efforts have been made in recent years to “educate” agents equally, the truth is that the police have “an organizational culture that has put a lot of value on power or the use of authority”. To this must be added the way a man understands his emotional relationships. “If there is an asymmetric communication, from the point of view of power, that anyone can leave it, it’s a cocktail that adds danger.”
Island: “We can not leave, we must stay in traffic”
Rubí and Castellbisbal held joint events on Thursday in memory of two women killed in a double crime on Tuesday. In Rúbí, the president of Salvador Illa attended the condemnation ceremony. There is sadness, but we cannot give up, we must be vigilant in attacking female violence, he said, at the same time urging to “do more” to oppose “those who reject violence”.
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