Feminists in Spain say that inaction and men’s silence are hindering the eradication of abuse as the country celebrates 20 years of groundbreaking laws against gender-based violence.
Ana Orantes, a 60-year-old woman, murdered her, reported violence to her to authorities and on TV, and then was burned to death by her ex-husband in 1997, shocking the country.
Parliament eventually adopted a law that came into effect in 2005 and inspired other countries to use gender-based violence as the first human rights violation.
The legislation sets the stage for a range of new support measures provided by women, including professional courts, free legal aid, emergency housing, prosecutions, even if the victim does not file a complaint and labels keeping the abuser away from the victims.
This is the first law in Spain that is conceived from a clear gender-based perspective, punishing male abuse committed by their partners or former party members.
For lawyer and activist Altamira Gonzalo, the purpose of the law is to “destroy the patriarchal structure of society, which is the cause of permissible and permanent inequality and therefore violence”.
Gonzaro added that this is the first European law to try to change different areas, including health systems, media, advertising and “all these aspects of life, reflecting inequality between men and women”.
These measures help lower the number of women, which fell to 48 lows in 2024 since the start of such records in 2008, when 76 women were killed by partners or former partners.
But, “related to men, especially young men” and “manly attitudes.”
Equality Minister Ana Redondo said the scale of the problem is “huge” and “inoculated like viruses in society” that spread on social networks.
– “Deafening silence” –
Socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez recently called on his fellow countrymen to do nothing, saying that “silence encompasses the most subtle and extreme manifestations of manhood.”
“Everywhere, this silence must end, because today is still a deafening silence,” he said in an event marking the 20th anniversary of the Spanish Gender Violence Act.
This week, Spanish bars presented equal prizes to Gonzalo and French lawyers Stephane Babonneau and Antoine Camus, representing Gisele Pelicot in her infamous mass rape trial, which had been searched extensively in Spain.
Points recruited dozens of men online while Pelicot was raped by her husband for years while calming, and she insisted that the public trial in France made her a global feminist idol.
“How many people know and keep quiet over the years of Gisele Pelicot’s ongoing rape?” Sanchez said.
Sexual violence is “underreported in Spain”, agreeing that Gonzalo is a member of the National Observatory for the use of gender-based violence.
Nevertheless, the groundbreaking 2005 law allows more than three million women to report their suffering and escape from it.
Spanish authorities are now expanding the scope of the law to include new crimes such as online and economic violence and “alternative violence” – abuse encounters children with the aim of causing mothers to suffer.
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