Women's rights threatened in Spain - March 2020
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Women’s rights
threatened
in Spain
March 2020
2
INDEX
Women’s rights threatened in Spain
March 2020
1. Introduction
2. Far-right against women
3. Trivialization of Nazism
4. Violence against women
5. Inequality of rights
6. Recommendations
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1. Introduction
The 28/2018 Decree, June 7, restructuring the Department of the Vice-
Presidency and Economy and Finance created the Civil and Political Rights
Office. October 1 of 2018 Government appointed director of the Civil and Political
Rights Office to Adam Majó Garriga.
The Parliament of Catalonia shows the concern by the far-right’s rise
everywhere in Europe and, in particular, at the Spanish state. In accordance
with BOPC 4711, November 20, 2019, and point 2 of the motion subsequent
appealing to the Government on the rise of far-right in Europe, and the impact of
the repressive drift of the Spanish state in European construction as a democratic
shared rights community. Accordingly:
a) Calls to the main institutions, political and social actors of the State to
normalize not fascism or to launder its policies.
b) Orders to the political forces presents in this Parliament that they don’t
collaborate with the far-right, neither actively nor passively, neither
counting their votes nor sharing mobilisations at the street.
c) Denounces the impunity that so often have the far-right’s actions at the
street and that too often they appear to be collusion with judicial
institutions, and the State security bodies and forces. In this way finds
alarming specially the position of the State Attorney General's Office of
considering far-right collectives who are likely to be victims of hate crimes.
d) Considers specially urgent that the State Government bet on a policy of
dialogue and democratic solutions for Catalonia, leaving the court way,
where he shares accusations with the far-right.
e) Requests that the State Government abandon the path of authoritarian
and repressive policies that are marked by far-right, being the unique offer
provided to solve the political conflict in Catalonia by the State
Government so far until now.
And at the point 6 of the motion, urges the Government to continue manifesting
its concern by the rise of far-right in Europe and, in particular, at the Spanish
State, and to continue condemning everywhere of the world the violation of
fundamentals rights per part of the Spanish state and its affectation at the
European institutions.
1
See Parliament
4 The Parliament of Catalonia has urged the Government to Civil and Political Rights Office elaborate a specific report of women’s rights threatened in the Spanish state and raise solutions to be able to protect them. Article 104, section g), 43/2019 Decree, February 25, establishes that the Office must ensure compliance and drive the measures adopted in the Resolution of the European Parliament 2018/2869 (RSP), October 25, on the rise of neo-fascist violence in Europe, reason why it becomes necessary inform on the actual situation, x-ray under the name Women’s rights threatened in Spain. March 202o. The working methodology of this Civil and Political Rights Office’s report is born in the study of media, sources of expertise and data extracted from sector’s, in order to value terms, news and concepts that allow us to grasp, explain and transmit the analysis’s state of women's rights and the threats and violations committed in Spain, in recent times. We appreciate the collaboration of Catalan Women’s Institute, and the Directorate General of Equality, which through their readings, observations and contributions have helped to improve, build and outline the spirit of this Report. Sources for X-ray Reality have taken into account that there is never a single way to tell the facts, but the facts are as they are. We wanted to be careful with the words that collect them, and with the objectivity needed to understand the severity and significance of the detected violations.
5 2. Far-right against women On 27 November 2019, Vox prevented that Congress make two institutional statements against gender violence and for the rights of children2. At the same day, the Parliament of Catalonia condemned the far-right’s rise, as threaten of all human rights, but in a special form as threaten to the women’s rights3. Equality of rights between men and women is in danger. Involvement in the fight could occur against sexist violence if the mental framework of certain political parties prevails, soaked in prejudice and fake news, that they want to blame women of gender dissatisfactions, as if there was an ancestral, primitive, immutable order that ordered social relations, and sexist violence was not a reflection of hatred, fear and imbalance. The major part of victims of gender violence are women. To put them on the same level as the aggressors is as shameful and inhuman, because it is tantamount to leaving them, leaving them unprotected, and returning them to the dark reality, almost hidden, of unreported crimes, of the complexes and the blows. However, in Spain this wicked vision have, unfortunately, political speakers using a populist, mudguard and sexist speech that finds to dehumanize, blame and cosify women. In order to reduce and even to suppress, women rights ablation obeys the misconception of men’s superiority over women, which permeates social reality with misogyny and it aims to return to previous situations. Where women could not report or defend themselves, where the exercise of physical violence remained unpunished, where the victims’ harassment considered apologetic, and where the commodification of the women’s body was habitual and consented. They want, in short, silent and submissive women, with trimmed rights and without being able to decide over their bodies. Far-right attack women’s rights and the approaches that denounce gender bias and oppression. The goal is to repeal laws on sexual and reproductive rights, even if women human’s rights are violated or eliminated such as abortion, divorce, or contraception. The commodification of women’s sexuality turns them into objects, meat, for sex (prostitution) o for reproduction (gestational surrogacy). To support the investiture of a PP president, in Andalusia, Vox put the condition of deleting gender policies. Vox wants to erase equality and fight against sexist violence policies, criminalizing feminism. 2 See Vox against gender violence 3 See Actually Parliament
6 URBÁN4 points out that “the cause of Vox’s belligerence and other European parties counterparts express against feminism it’s in that, with the control of the reproductive rights for the woman and her sexual freedom, it questions the cornerstone of conception of far-right society: patriarchy. Not only is the female role of mother and wife questioned, but the system itself, its inequalities and violence, and also the role of men in itself”. URBÁN5 points out that “any threat to the male patriarchal role and to the traditional family is a direct attack on basic principles of far-right. This is how we see platforms as Hazte Oír, Not only do they face the right to abortion or egalitarian marriages, they also allude to transgender people to intensify the anxiety and panic they cause as threats to the traditional male roles”. URBÁN6 indicates that Vox uses the strategy of parallelism, the creation of highly contaminated mirror terms and expressions in a negative sense. They use “the concept of supremacist feminism, to link it with white supremacist movements and present it as racist, radical and violent, conceptualizing it as a kind of movement that pursues men. The spokeswoman for Vox, Rocío Monasterio, denounces feminism as a totalitarian or supremacist doctrine”, and with this logic of stigmatizing is born the concept of gender ideology, just as they use “femaleness” to denigrate feminism, and to assimilate it into the scourge that precisely seeks to combat it. The feminist activist Brigitte VASSALLO named “purple-washing” to the phenomenon by which the struggles of women are used to camouflage sexist messages and give them a falsely egalitarian appearance. As the novelist and playwright Sasha Marianna SALZMANN7 indicates, our rights are in danger and we will have a lot to recover them. SALZMANN points out that: “In Western Europe, we have difficulty understanding what it means to lose 4 See La emergència de Vox; Urban, Miguel. Sylone & Viento Sur Books. Barcelona. October 2019. Page 134. 5 See La emergència de Vox; Urban, Miguel. Sylone & Viento Sur Books. Barcelona. October 2019. Page 136. 6 See La emergència de Vox; Urban, Miguel. Sylone & Viento Sur Books. Barcelona. October 2019. Pages 138-139. 7 See Our rights are in danger
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rights, but they are in danger and can happen at any moment - it will be very
difficult for them to recover them. The raise of far right in many countries should
be a point of great concern. In Nazi Germany, when the Jews began to carry
away, the non-Jewish people did not care. It happened the same with the
Gypsies, and then the homosexuals, and the Communists, until one day they
came for you. They search for you and no one defended you”.
The far-right’s speech threatens women’s rights, among other dangers, with
denialism, fake news or el revival of uncomplexed sexism.
Denialism
The first campaign of the government of the Junta de Andalucía, about gender
violence8, of the PP, C’s and Vox tripartite, Agust 2019, used publicity of happy
abused women. They were trying to justify the aberration with the motto “she has
been ill-treated, but life is always stronger”, as a theoretical example of
overcoming and of resilience. Understandably, photographs of women used
stating they had been "abused", but models they were taken from pages that
offered images and audio-visual resources. They were not abused women nor
victims of sexist violence. No woman who has suffered gender violence could
identify her with these happy faces. It was as if they say it is not that bad.
As PICÓ9 pointed out, on December 2, 2019, “denialism is the answer of far right
ideologies, all over the world, in a democratic agreement, with clear and well-
programmed goals, threaded with unsubstantiated and also unscrupulous
messages. These populist movements have overshadowed the citizens'
disenchantment with dynamism for the advancement of progressive,
environmentalist, and equality policies, support for the capitalist economic
model, and at the same time regaining the prestige of patriarchy”.
The goal, PICÓ said, of “sexism violences denial is the firm defense of a
patriarchal society. A model that fails in the face of social inequalities, the
inequality between men and women in all spheres, especially those of power and
decision, with figures of intolerable sexist violence. On November 25 there were
been counted 1.028 killed women by men and also 34 children, over 275
orphans”.
The consequence of this denial is manifest, as PICÓ collects, in acts such as: “to
make impossible the institutional declarations of rejection to sexist violence on
World Day and turn away from the victims”, facts that constitute also “another
abuse against women through the instrumentalization of feminist speech”.
Deny sexism violence is therefore a central matter of a persistent sexism, which
it’s wants to be manifested in all its possible forms, such as PICÓ alerts, “murders,
8 See Campanya andalusa sobre violència de gènere
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See Negacionisme feminista8 rape, sexual assault, women control with new technologies and without limitations on the spaces of power, wage gap... and the unbearable mansplaining, of which there is too much denialism”. MANCEBO10, spokesman of platform València Crida against Racism and Fascism, talking with Moisés Pérez, said: “the far right no longer needs to participate in liturgies for uniforms and military marches. Currently they are acting under an allegedly democratic peer to try to situate their fascist actions and statements. It is happening, both by democratic political parties and by the media, normalization of speech of the far right. (...) The great threat of the far right is to normalize their speech, to normalize them as one more actor». He added: «They are not just another actor. They promote ideas that are contrary to democracy and human rights. And so they need to be pointed out, de- legitimized» MANCEBO said also: “disassembling their speeches is fine. It is necessary to replicate with data the lies that the far right spread. In the current one epoch of overinformation, however, statistics are not enough to answer. When a lie is disassembled, the fake has already spread through the network in an impressive way and without the verification having the same audience. That is why problems need to be pointed out”. He gave an example: “When they say that the problem is that a woman looks veiled or not, we must point out that the problem is sexism”, that “one must avoid falling into their frames. We need to counteract this by talking about the real issues that plague us all, such as rising rent prices and precarious working conditions”. SOUSA11 says: “for those who deny sexist violence, it seems that the more than 1,000 women killed since 2004 have not existed. They are an invention of a society that has stopped sewing at home and has taken to the streets. The magic formula for VOX is to know how to sew; that fixes everything. But the death of a woman can hardly be sewn. You can hardly sew an infant's orphanage or the psychological wounds left by the violence”. SOUSA thinks: “You can hardly sew the orphanage of an infant who has often seen his father cry and stomach his mother until one day he kills her. The psychological wounds that a woman leaves with psychological violence can 10 See Normalitzar l’extrema dreta 11 See No es pot cosir la vida d’una woman
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hardly be sewn. Not surprisingly, experts say that a woman's full recovery can
take more than 12 years with therapy. Girls' nightmares can hardly be sewn,
when they’re periodically raped by their parents, grandparents, uncles or
cousins. Gender-based violence has always existed. Previously covered,
allegations are now growing, but it is still unbearable”.
SOUSA remember us also that: “on November 25 (2019), day against gender
violence, in an act of Council of Madrid, Vox's spokesman for the municipal
group, Ortega Smith, turned his face to a victim who accused him of denying
sexist violence. Ortega Smith's contempt and indifference was captured by
television cameras. The images are already part of the dignity of the victims as
opposed to those who deny sexist violence”.
Political far right at Spain wants to eliminate the laws and the policies that protect
women’s rights, and they point to their speech entities as Hazte Oír.
As the joint editorial of reporters from CRÍTIC said, “is a danger for women.
And a danger very serious. (Vox) is a political party that has popularized
labels as ‘femaleness’ or ‘gender jihadism’ to vomit ‘fake news’ as that false
allegations are hidden or that feminism (‘gender ideology’, as they call it)
“establishes the presumption of guilt for men”. In a moment, on November
2019, in which they are already in Spain 90 the killed women by sexism, it’s
terrible news that Vox is a third party force in Congress. And not just for the
discursive aberrations it raises against feminism –and against women
generally–, but rather the proposals it intends to promote, which include the
elimination of “sectarian” regulations, such as the law against gender violence,
or the suppression of interventions by “change of gender” or “abortion” of public
health”.
As the joint editorial of reporters from CRÍTIC said, “Fascism advances if it is not
fought. In front of the far right, journalism (or at least critical journalism)
should be used dam of containment, and delete it from the map by
confronting every premise, every inflamed thesis, every ‘fake new’, every speech
that incites hatred”.
Fake news
Simona LEVI points out, at #Fake You12, that what it takes to fight against fake
news is more and better democracy and less technophobia and criminalization
of freedoms; more accountability and verification and less impunity,
misinformed paternalism and a monopoly on media and information resources.
As BLATT explained13: “just now, when seemed that the technology approached
us to the utopic achievement of a democracy based in the truthful and contrasted
12
See Fakeyou
13 See Historia reciente de la verdad. 2018. BLATT, Roberto. Madrid. Turner Publicaciones. Page 104.10 information, universally accessible –the ways for checking the evidences exist and they are within reach of everybody-, it’s multiplied the machine of making fakes”. When Santiago Abascal said14 that the law against gender violence “it hasn’t helped to reduce the number of killings” and that “there is a 86% of filed complaints” he was lying. His speech is false. According to 2018 Gender Violence Report of General Council of the Judiciary, 385 were filing from 29.028 sentenced: a 1.3%. From the total of sentences, a 57.14% were condemning (16.586). During the investiture debate of the then socialist candidate Pedro Sánchez, the Vox’s leader, Santiago Abascal15, used the tribune of the Congress of Deputies to report the sexual assault committed by foreigners. He said that the 69% of all the imputed barons in group rape they had been strangers. However, Crimes against freedom and Sexual Indemnity Report16 in Spain, 2017, from Ministry of Interior, indicates that a 70.1% from arrested or investigated were Spanish, in front of a 29.9% of strangers. Statistic by sexual crimes of 2017 of the General Council of the Judiciary (CGPJ) indicates that from the total 2.816 condemned, 2.107 were Spanish and only 709 were strangers. As VIDAL-FOLCH17 writes, on January 13, 2020, Vox's lies are usually more poisonous because the use of numbers carries a certain presumption of veracity. He says too: “Why are lies of far-right so insidious? Because their manufacturers know that they are creating lies, and they are saying contrary to the truth with the intention of deceiving. Because this intention is absolute, without nuances; express, never produced by chance; self-sustained, never subjected to contrast with other data. Extreme lies are manufactured as a product ad hoc, operative by itself as part of a virtual reality, the opposite of physical reality”. Revival of sexism URBAN18 writes that “there where feminism propose emancipation, far right say liberate, keeping thus the scheme of the man (white, occidental and Christian, if possible) that liberate women and the rest of peoples and oppressed beings of the world and of the society”· 14 See Campaign fake news 15 See Abascal estrangers aggressors 16 See Crimes Report 2017 17 See the column How far right lie 18 See La emergència de Vox; Urban, Miguel. Editorial Sylone with Viento Sur. Barcelona. October 2019. Page 146.
11 We must be alert to a social sign of fascism as sexism (hate to non-conformist sex). A regional deputy19 of Vox Madrid’s Assembly, on November 17, 2019, tickled feminism as a “cancer” and she said that “sew” empower to the woman. On May 14, 2019, the candidate of Vox to Madrid’s Council, Ortega Smith20, declared that women “have right to cut their hair and nails, but not to abort”. PALOP21 indicates that: “the control on reproduction is a form of oppression which prevents to the women take their own decisions or define the conditions where such decisions are taken; it’s a form of institutional violence oriented to maintain the biological and conventional family and the patriarchal sexuality in order to that barons have the certainty about his biological paternity”. On January 5, 2019, at “Declared war of Vox against women”, PÉREZ OLIVA22 writes that “sexism always has been here hiding, defensively, resisting and kicking off legislative initiatives for positive discrimination or protection of the women”. He talked about an opened war, “with as strategy based in falsify and misrepresent the data and the reality”. And he advertised that: “to discredit the feminist movement, the new-sexists need to characterize it as a perverse thing, that's why they commit against the ‘gender ideology’, out coined by the Vatican with which far right aims to mean again the feminism as a totalitarian ideology that divide the society and chase one of its halves, men. Santiago Abascal said it, and Javier Ortega, Vox spokesman, repeated it in all naturalness”. PÉREZ OLIVA alert that: “what matters in the case of gender violence is not the stage or the field, but the cause. This is what Vox pretend to camouflage. They lie when they say there are so many assaulted men as women also assaulted. They lie when they claim that most allegations of maltreatment are false. For example, from the 166.260 presented denounces in 2017, only two were considered false, according to the General Council of the Judiciary”. 19 See Sew empower 20 See Ortega Smith and the women 21 See Revolución feminista y políticas de lo común frente a la extrema derecha; María Eugenia R. Palop; Icaria; February 2019; page 72 22 See Opinion
12 Vox’s success in Andalusia23 can be explained it, partly, because of the concern of its Andalusian voters about the Catalan conflict, and in the search for seemingly strong and determined proposals in the face of new uncertainties. Andalusia closed 2019 with the highest numeral of sexists killing in Spain: were 13 killed women at Andalusia in 201924 by her couple or ex-couple. The Vox list head in Andalusia25, was condemned in 2011 by the Supreme Court to 2 years, of disqualification for a crime of malicious prevarication, and he defines himself as a “defender of the Spanish nation, the family values and equality and pro-life”. In 2009, when he was still a judge, more than 20 women's associations asked the General Congress of the Judiciary to open him a file for considering that he acted as the speaker of abusers, and he defended saying that he felt himself “victim of gender jihadism”. On January 12 of 2019 opined that in Spain we have a dictatorship disguised as democracy26. From his Twitter, on November 7, 2015, he tweeted: “radical feminism from the left is made up by lesbian, violent and miserable merciful, who spend public money. And the PP swallows”. On January 9, 2019, Laura PINYOL27 asked herself who had articulated the Vox transmission strap. Televisions had a certain responsibility when giving space to a then extra-parliamentary party, which had no political representativeness, and that in Catalonia had the repeated presence of Ortega Smith at FAQS as representative of the particular complaint against the process. Therefore, give voice to those who did not have it on television sets contributed to normalize and to frivolize the Vox’s speech. The key contributors to this standardization were the so-called heart magazines which exhibited recklessly and from the beginning its admiration and sympathy for a pro-Francoist, sexist, xenophobic and retrograde party. A year after, during January 2020, to the political debate the controversy exploded by the educational censorship, measure accepted by the governments of Murcia and Andalusia. Far right wants to censor the talks28 attempting to prevent homophobic bullying, sexual abuse, or adolescent pregnancy. Although complaints about such workshops are testimonial throughout Spain, the idea is extended that families should authorize workshops, which are given during school hours, about gender violence, LGTBI rights, bullying or xenophobia. 23 See Vox at Andalucía 24 See Sexist killing at Andalucía 25 See Political actuality 26 See Dictatorship in disguise 27 See Channel transmission Vox 28 See Society actually
13
The student union29 mobilized against the Vox’s educational censorship, and
considered it an attack to the women’s right, to LGTBI collective, to the
immigrants and the youth as a whole. They understood that the far right wanted
to use classrooms as a political and ideological platform where to scatter its
message of intolerance, racism and sexism.
On December 2019, The case of the parents of a second-year ESO student at a
high school of Baena (Córdoba)30 was announced in the media. They reported to
the teaching staff in the Municipal Court of First Instance and Instruction for
disagreeing with the fact that their child participated in an activity carried out on
the occasion of the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against
Women (November 25). This is serious and worrying. Teachers not only have the
right to work in the classroom equality between women and men, and to raise
awareness about sexist violence, rather, it is a duty, a necessity to educate them
in democratic values, and the attempt to introduce the denialism in the
classroom, and to diminish women's rights, which must be protected from
mistreatment and abuse. This requires proper training in respect, equality, and
against violence, including the violence sexist.
29
See Against fascism
30 See Denounce gender violence activity14
3. Trivialization of Nazism
Pintada amb esvàstiques a la Casa de la Woman a Fuenlabrada 13/11/19
At 2018 year, a hundred years after approving the women’s right to vote,
Germany had one of the gender’s wage gap bigger of the continent and a low
female representativeness. Women in Germany collect a 21.6% less than the
men31.
On April 13, 2019, at 103 years old, Neus Català died. She was survivor from the
concentration camps of Nazi32. Nazism not only killed six millions of Jews but
also Gipsy people, homosexuals, disabled or opponents suffered the effects of
Adolf Hitler’s doctrine, raising the numeral of the dead to eleven people’s
millions33. United Nations designed January 27 as the international
commemoration Day in memory of Holocaust victims and crimes against
Humanity prevention.
The Nazis maintained several concentration camps, precincts that they used to
deprive of liberty, to enslave and to eliminate enemies with a sophisticated
repressive and extermination system.
In 2013, Neus Català said that “to Spain doesn’t interest the truth about
Nazism”34. Ravensbrück was not a concentration camp but an extermination
camp. And we must remember that “what happened there was not only the
Nazis' fault but also the complicity of the leaders of other European countries”.
We must remember the 30 point, of the European Parliament resolution
2018/2869 (RSP). October 25. On the rise of neo-fascist violence in Europe,
which calls for a common culture of remembrance that rejects the fascist crimes
of the past; being deeply worried that the younger generations in Europe and
31 See A century of inequality
32 See Neus Català survivor
33 See Remember Holocaust victims
34 See In Spain doesn’t interest truth about Nazism15 elsewhere feel less and less concerned about the history of fascism, and hence risk becoming indifferent to new threats. The Parliament of Catalonia considered that to adjective feminism as victimist, or even worse, belittling and stigmatizing it with the term feminazi, is a trivialization of the horrors of Nazism and a strategy aimed at perpetuating the patriarchal and sexist structure. In 2013, the escalation of Nazism's trivialization worried the Israeli embassy at Spain35. The director of the Jewish Community, Atid, of Catalonia, Tomás Morgenstern, said it is sad that in the 21st century Nazism used still, with such lightness. Spokesman of the embassy, Lior Hair, said any use of verbal or visual terminology related to the Holocaust and World War II should not be used in political debate, since this message from trivialization of Nazism "very spoils the efforts" made to bring to the Spanish society the dimension of the Holocaust and the Nazi barbarism. In 2020, the term "Nazism" (or derivatives) it’s used as a throwing weapon between political parties, to discredit adversaries and empty of historical content the human tragedy that was the Holocaust, the programming of horror by system, the absolute dehumanization, and the total wickedness. On September 2013 Euro Comissioner of Justice, Viviane Reding, warned to Spain by the trivialization of Nazism: "the blatant, intentional and public exculpation, denial or trivialization", of crimes committed by totalitarian regimes "must be criminally punishable 36". On December 2014, the Special Prosecutor's Office for hate crimes and discrimination in Catalonia rejected the lawsuit filed by the Manifesto entities for Democratic Dignity, in October 15, by occasion of the spread of trivializing comments of the Nazism37. The trivialization of Nazism is not a crime in Spain. In Germany is a crime using the term “Nazi”. As said in August 2018, Enric Garriga38, president of Amical Mauthausen and other camps, in Spain “is not a crime, because we still drag the defeat of the Civil War. The famous Transition did not clean up and did not make it easier for new rules to be put in place than in the rest of Europe. If we add to this that the heirs of the Franco regime still have significant power shares in Spain, the situation will not improve. Amical have brought a handful of proposals to Congress to recognize the right of victims of fascism and Nazism and none of them have prospered. There is no acknowledgment of the victims, but no acknowledgment of the state's guilt. Much of the blame for the deaths of deported Republicans to concentration camps comes from the neglect and neglect of Franco's government. We must remember the words of Franco's Foreign Minister, Serrano Suñer, to Hitler 35 See Trivialization of Nazism 36 See Trivialization punishable criminally 37 See Prosecutor Office doesn’t see trivialization of Nazism 38 See Nazi as an insult causes anger and outrage
16 when the latter asked him what to do, from the republican prisoners who had fallen into the hands of the Third Reich, and the minister replied, "There are no Spaniards outside of Spain." It was their death sentence, because they lost their political prisoners status." On May 26, 2018, Isaac Levy Benbeniste, President de Licra Catalunya, wrote at La Vanguardia39, that he wanted to “manifest the most energetic repulses by the lamentable and excessive use of the Nazi term by many politicians and analysts of all ideological spectrum to insult those who do not think like them. It's a blatant act of trivialization of Nazism, that was an industry of extermination of millions of people and incomparable with any other ideology or political movement today. Many of us are fed up with this disgusting and offensive trivialization of Nazism and we want society to be aware of the pain and the offense that it brings to the victims' collective of Nazism”. Until March 8, 2019, a bus with the face of Hitler and the message “Stop Feminazis” walked by Spain. Association HazteOir40 used Hitler's image to challenge gender-based violence, calling for the abolition of gender laws (the Gender Violence Law of 2004, and the regional LGBTI standards). Instruction judge 4 of Barcelona refused to immobilize the bus against "feminazis" appealing for freedom of expression41 but 12 days after he rectified and investigated him for a hate crime against women42. Banning Nazism leads to fostering intolerance and belittling the principle of non-discrimination based on race, sex, or gender orientation and identity. In October 28, 2019, the professional association Acció i Comunicació sobre Orient Mitjà (ACOM)43 accused to Pedro Sánchez to ban the Nazi genocide and to use it for electoral purposes. They indicated: “any kind of reference or comparison of the extermination of more than 6 million people, including 1.6 39 See Nazism trivialization 40 See Hitler feminazi bus 41 See Prosecutor Office Barcelona Hazte oir 42 See Judge investigate crime of hate 43 See Trivialization of Holocaust
17 million children, is an act of indescribable moral decline, and is an extremely insulting act to the Jews of Spain and of the world”. The truth is that we talk about the same country where the 7/2019 Circular state that an aggression against a person of Nazi ideology, or incitement to hate for such a group may be included in such crimes. (BOE May 24, 2019). May 14. From the State Attorney General's Office, guidelines to interpret hate crimes, described in 510 article of Criminal Code44, point 2.4, hate crime’s passive subjects. Banning Nazism is also perverting the spirit of hate crimes, and citing as an example of political ideology deserving of protection from Nazism, which is precisely the ideology that advocates hate against the groups that should protect the Nazism the mentioned Circular. This dangerous and, from our point of view, misinterpretation criminalizes hate crime and its purpose, and also laundering in the far right and far right, threatening the rights of women in Spain. Nazism is not a democratic option. Fascism, neither. In October 31, 2019, the Parliament of Catalonia adopted the Resolution 620/XII, on trivialization of Nazism and fascism45, according to witch: “1. The Parliament of Catalonia declares that there is no room for a possible comparison between the horrors experienced by the victims of Nazism during the regime's attempt to exterminate different groups of people and any situation that we experience today in Catalonia or the set of Spain. 2. The Parliament of Catalonia rejects any comparison, tacit or explicit, of the current situation in Catalonia or in Spain, with the violence, unleashed by the Nazi regime, against the European population. And against millions of people pursued by reasons of ideology, membership in a confession, ethnic group or nationality, disability, affective or sexual preferences, or lifestyle, because this contribute to the trivialization of Nazism and fascism. On January 23, 2018, at Twitter, the judgement Joaquim Bosch Grau wrote: “we still live in a country with very reactionary sectors. Every time that I read the de-qualifying feminazi, I can see behind them the detesting attitudes on equality of women and que they step on the memory of the victims of Nazism”46. 44 See BOE 45 See Parliament 46 See Feminazi
18 4. Violence against women Spanish State took an important step forward in 2004 when it passed a comprehensive law against gender violence, and in 2017 in agreeing on a State Pact aimed at addressing the existing deficiencies in effective protection of women. However, and as it points out Amnesty International47, in Spain violence against women is one of the human rights’ violations more habitual and encased. As also Amnesty International48 points up, “violence against women is the most widespread consequence of gender discrimination. According to United Nations Office On Drugs and Crime (UNODC), the 58% of killed women in 2017 were it by their couples, ex couples or family members; on average, 137 women are killed daily by a family member. According to the World Health Organization, the 35% of the female population has ever suffered physical and / or sexual violence in their lives, from a company sentimental or sexual violence from other man without this relation; some national studies raise the percentage to 70%. The facts and the numerals about the different forms of violence against women and infants collected by UN Women complete this scary social portrait”. On November 26, 2019, the Balearic MP Gloria Santiago explained49 that: “No man has cried to children burned in a home oven as revenge for refusing to be with a woman. They don't get hammered at head by a jealous ex-girlfriend. No woman ever comes across a drunken man she encounters by the street. Cap woman spit to a man and insults him by wearing too provocative pants”. She said “Reality is very easy to understand, 97% of women had suffered sexist violence in any of its manifestations and that is why we want the state government to expand the concept of violence that appears in the law of comprehensive protection measures against gender violence”. 47 See Women’s Rights 48 See Violence against women 49 See Trivialization violence
19 In 2014, European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA)50 published the resume from the findings of an EU-wide survey on gender violence against women, with interviews of 42,000 women in the 28 Member States of the European Union. This report reflects that violence against women, and especially gender-based violence that disproportionately affects women, is a major human rights violation that the EU cannot afford to overlook. The data are scary: 13 million of women between the ages of 18 and 74 had suffered physical violence in the 12 months before the survey. 3.7 million had suffered sexual violence. 1 in 20 women had been raped since the age of 15. 18% of women had been harassed by the age of 15. And 12% of the respondents had suffered some form of aggression or sexual incident by an adult before the age of 15. It should come as no surprise that a year earlier, in 2013, the World Health Organization (WHO) described violence against women as a real pandemic, a public health problem worldwide. The results of the FRA’s report indicate that there is physical and sexual violence, as well as psychological violence, which occurs with bullying, sexual harassment, or experiences of violence during childhood, which bring forth the victim the fear, and its repercussions. of the different violence suffered by women. Declaration on the Elimination of Violence against Women of the United Nations of 1993, considers sexist violence “any act of gender-based violence that results in, or is likely to result in, physical, sexual or psychological harm or suffering to women, including threats of such acts, coercion or arbitrary deprivation of liberty, whether occurring in public or in private life”. According to 5/2008 Law, April 24, on women’s rights to eradicate sexist violence, sexist violence means, in Catalonia, “waged violence against women. As a manifestation of discrimination and the situation of inequality within the framework of a system of relationships of power over men over women, and which, produced by physical, economic or psychological means, including threats, intimidation or coercion, which results in physical, sexual or psychological damage or suffering, whether it occurs in the public or private spheres". This violence take different forms: 50 See FRA
20
Physical violence: force against her body.
Psychological violence: suffering in the field of freedom (threats,
humiliation, harassment, verbal coercion, etc.).
Sexual violence sexual and sexual abuses: not allowed sex.
Economical violence: deprivation or limitation in disposition of funds.
This violence happens in different fields, as the couple, the family, the labour, the
social or community, or other fields.
WALKER51 formulated the cycle theory of violence to reflect on how the aggressor
behaves in each of the stages of the violent process. In this cycle, there are 3
emotions that keep the violence moving and make it difficult to break the violent
relationship. They are love, hope and fear.
In Catalonia, with data from statistic report “10 years of the Law of women’s right
to erase the sexist violence”, of Gender Equality Observatory, 201852, it can be
found that the average number of killed women by sexist violence in the couple's
area was 10 women by year, of which, 27% had a previous complaint.
That report collects data on killed women in the area of the couple, but we must
not forget that there are also murders of women by sexist violence, in other areas,
as the socio-community or family member that are not officially counted as
killings by sexist violence sexist and of which there is no official record, but so are
they.
That report also includes the number of women served by Specialized
Information Services, which has increased year after year to 4,126 women
attended in 2018.Also included is female genital mutilation. Specifically, in those
years there were 370 cases of female genital mutilation with a clearly downward
trend.
At Macro poll of Violence against the Woman 201553, in Spain, it is shown that
12.5% of women 16 years and over have suffered from physical or sexual violence
from their couple or ex-couple throughout their lives. This is equivalent to 2.5
million people. This percentage reaches 24.2% (4.8 million women) when the
perpetrators also include men without this sentimental attachment. Therefore,
we can say that 1 from 4 women suffered or suffered physical or sexual
violence.
UNWOMEN54 estimated that of the 87,000 killed women globally in 2017, more
than half (50,000, 58%) were killed by their partners or family members. This
51 See The Battered Women; Walker, Leonor; 1979.
52 See Observatori
53 See Macroenquesta
54 See Unwomen21 means that 137 women, all over the world, are killed daily by a member of their family. More than a third (30,000) of the killed women, in 2017, were exterminated by their current or ex-couple. The European Parliament55 condemns all the violence's forms against women and urges the Members states that have not yet ratified the Istanbul Convention without delay. The European Parliament also supports the mobilizations against setbacks in matters of sexual and reproductive women's rights, as well as the widespread media coverage of sexual harassment cases. In 2018, four years after Spain ratify the Istanbul convention56 evaluation of the application led to clear suspense. For example, sexual violence is not recognized within the framework of public police as a whole, and there is no equality education, as the LOMCE does not require to educate for equality and the eradication of sexist violence. At Madrid, 4 from 5 young women joves suffer sexual harassment at the street57. Plan Internacional NGO has launched the initiative “Safier Cities for Girls”, EU-funded, with the aim of collecting street harassment data, again in Madrid, and also in Barcelona and Seville. In Spain, bullying is only penalized in certain circumstances and when there is physical contact. In Barcelona, for example, two girls reported being sexually harassed on the street, in the Teixonera district, in the Horta-Guinardó district58. The Horta-Guinardò Feminist and Antifascist Committee complained that: “there are not enough people to respond to emergency situations when women who have just suffered sexual assault, still invaded by panic and anger, take the courage and strength to go to report it; it is unfortunate”. The public policemen must fight against sexism, against the social habits that normalize these behaviors, in order to denature all violence against women, whether it be street harassment, with the so-called florets, or coercion and limitations of the their right to freedom of movement. The right to freedom and the right to life of women are threatened. In Spain, the 85.8% of mortal victims in hands from their couple or ex-couple among 2016 and 2018 were women59, adding up dead by gender violence and dead by intimate domestic violence. 14.2% would respond to 22 men killed by a woman of 25 men killed in this area. 55 See Convenció d’Istambul 56 See Espanya suspèn 57 See Assetjament de carrer sexual 58 See Dues noies assetjades 59 See Actualitat societat
22
From January 1 of 2003 to April 6 of 2020, 1.051 women were mortal victims
of gender violence, according to statistics of Equality Ministry60.
PALOP61 indicates that the average of killed women annually in Spain by sexist
violence ranges from 50 to 70. He notes that: “impunity against sexist violence
has been enormous in these years, and to a large extent it has been due to the
existence of patriarchal regulations and judiciary, without training or
sensitivity on gender perspective”. You can see the evolution of the killed by their
couple or ex-couple in then next graphic:
Killed women by her couple or ex-couple
(2003-2019)
76
71 72 71 73
69
62 60
57 57 55 55
54
51 49 50 51
2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019
Source: Ministry of Equality
Between all the killed women62 by their couple or ex couple —1.051 since 2003—
those over 60 were the least alarmed. In 92% of cases they had not or did not
report any report (compared to almost 80% on average). Therefore, these women
are underrepresented in statistics and they are the most invisible victims.
In the first 28 days of 2020, 4 women were killed in Catalonia, victims of sexist
violence, and 7 in Spain. Therefore, 2020 started with a average of near 2 dead
women by week.
In 2019, 1 of every 4 killed women by gender violence at Spanish state resided in
Andalusia63. 13 women were killed in Andalusia at the year 201964 by her couple
or ex-couple, the highest number of all the autonomous communities, from the
55’s total. Almeria (behind Melilla) is one of the provinces with the highest rates
of women victims by gender violence65. You can consult the data in the Statistical
60 See Mortal victims numerals
61 See Revolución feminista y políticas de lo común frente a la extrema derecha; María Eugenia R. Palop; Icaria;
February 2019; pages 63 to 67
62
See El País
63
See 1 of every 4
64
See 2019 in Andalusia
65
See Killings23
Portal of the Government Delegation by Gender Violence66, and you can view the
totals on the next map:
Total of killed women by autonomous community at 01.08.20
re
Source: RTVE.es and
Statistic web of Delegation of the Government for Gender Violence
PALOP indicates also that: “sexist violence is a sign of the structural
oppression that women suffer for the mere fact of being; an oppression that
works thanks to authors, accomplices and cover-ups, and people try to
disconnect from individual cases, as if these cases are only exceptional
deviations in a perfectly egalitarian world”.
PALOP evidences that: “power relations between the sexes have traditionally
been based on the control of bodies, sexuality and reproductive capacity of
women, and the State, using the Right, has frequently institutionalized such
control”.
Every November 25 International Day for the Elimination of Violence against
Women is celebrated67. The Catalan Institute of Women (ICD) recognizes the
existence of sexual violence to its fullest extent, as well as its involvement by
providing resources to combat them, through the Network for Comprehensive
Recovery and Recovery for Women that suffer sexist violence.
As the joint editorial of reporters from CRÍTIC said, “is a danger for women.
And a danger very serious. (Vox) is a political party that has popularized
labels as ‘femaleness’ or ‘gender jihadism’ to vomit ‘fake news’ as that false
allegations are hidden or that feminism (‘gender ideology’, as they call it)
“establishes the presumption of guilt for men”. In a moment, on November
2019, in which they are already in Spain 90 the killed women by sexism, it’s
terrible news that Vox is a third party force in Congress. And not just for the
66
See Statistics
67 See 25-N24 discursive aberrations it raises against feminism –and against women generally–, but rather the proposals it intends to promote, which include the elimination of “sectarian” regulations, such as the law against gender violence, or the suppression of interventions by “change of gender” or “abortion” of public health”. The document Acculturation and purplewashing in Spanish army. An study about women symbol68 remember us that sexism is far from leaving the Army, and which is still part of its structure. RIBES, and LLUC BAGUR, believe that women situation inside the Armed Forces, rather than represent a milestone in the feminist vindication of equality, is another example of patriarchal rule and militaristic logic. The number of women who form part of the Armed Forces, from their incorporation in 1988 to the present, has never reached 13% of the total number of personnel. Some of the 12 women interviewed described episodes in sufficient detail about experiences of high levels of violence, both verbal and physical. More than one reported rape and sexual harassment, episodes they experienced with fear and sensation of defencelessness. In October 2019 it was published the statistic Report “Gender violence” made by Gender Equality Observatory, attached to Women Institute (ICD)69, and from which some relevant data can be extracted: The average age of killed women in the field of couple, until the third quarter of 2019, it was 35 years. In 2018 there were made 15.982 denounces. The 81% (12.977) in the field of the couple and the 19% (3.005) in the field of family. In 2018 were registered 1.678 crimes against freedom and sexual indemnity. The most common age for victims of sexual abuse is between the ages of 11 and 20 years old. In 2018, Information and Support Services to the Women (SAID) attended 26.762 women. During the first quarter of 2019, Information and Support Services to the Women (SAID) attended 13.660 women. 44.3% of women who have suffered some kind of sexist violence with great or considerable suffering try not to go out alone and the 22.5% is more afraid to go out than before. Social Networks and gender violence 68 See Assetjament sexual exèrcit 69 See Discriminació
25
On 2017, Junta de Andalucía published “Social Networks on gender perspective:
guide to know and to counteract gender violence on-line”70. The authors of this
work do not believe that the way to resolve gender on-line violence is essentially
to ban online anonymity or to resort to more censorship and attacks to freedom
of expression. They understand that privacy and anonymity are vital needs for all
but that they are subject to asymmetrical power relations. There are not the same
privileges and options, the same equality, when it is possible to express freely and
anonymously on the network. The dark face is that many abusers hide and take
advantage of the relative anonymity that social media can provide. This makes
them often very difficult to identify, or their identification depends on the
willingness of the trading platforms that govern these networks.
Right of women, to freedom of expression, is threatened at social platforms
networks by the proliferation of violence, and abusive conducts on line. These
conducts threaten the capacity of women to participate, freely, in the public
sphere.
Amnesty International Research, Toxic Twitter: Violence and Abuse against
Women on Twitter71, shows that 23% of women requested in 8 countries have
experienced abuse or harassment at Internet.
The research show also that “violence and abusive conducts against women
at Twitter adopt different forms: direct or indirect threats to physical or sexual
violence. Insults targeting one or more aspects of a woman's identity, such as
those of a racist or transphobic nature. Bullying. Attacks on privacy such as
"doxy" (Internet disclosure of private data that reveals a person's identity in
order to cause alarm or discomfort). And the dissemination of sexual or intimate
images of women without their consent. The result of this violence and these
abusive conducts is the creation of an internet hostile environment for
women in order to embarrass, intimidate, degrade, despise, and ultimately
mute them”.
On March 8, 2019, from Twitter of @Voxbaleares72 three girls, two of them
underage, were reportedly assaulted that morning by a group of radical feminists
at Servera, Mallorca. The aggression would had been motivated by their
unwillingness to wear the purple bow.
The information was false and it was spread on social media that six radical
feminists had assaulted two minors and a young girl in Mallorca during the
feminist mobilization of 8-M. The Civil Guard confirmed that there were no
allegations, and Vox apologized for spreading the lie. A party activist invented the
facts by giving a medical portion of her daughter a month earlier.
70
See Xarxes socials
71 See AI
72 See Mallorca26 As RAMPIN73 points out: “the instrument for interpreting and thinking of reality in one form or another is language. In fact, language is not just a matter of words. Or rather, these are words, but their effects are so specific that they can change behaviour, and therefore reality itself”. To prevent tampering of social network, and the fake news propagated by the ring-wright extremism, the most important is to educate public, to get people out of these manipulation campaigns. Young people need to be able to distinguish the fake news of the real ones, know how the propaganda systems work, don't be intimidated by the campaigns that seem to be done for the general public but they have been, in fact, by a localized target of a few dozen or a few hundred people. 73 See the introduction to Il grano e la zizzania, 2010. RAMPIN, Matteo.
27 5. Inequality of rights The rise of political Far-right behave an increase of sexism and a trivialization of different forms of violence that women suffer. It happens with cynicism and falsehood of trying to make believe that Vox defend women and their rights, when they say: “Vox is the party that better defend equality between everybody: men and women, and among all the Spanish from the province they are. But we don’t support this radical and old fashioned feminism that the only thing is looking for is the confrontation between men and women”. PALOP74 indicates that public feminist policies demand to erase violence against woman, “not only the gender violence, of couple or ex couple, if not all the sexist violence forms. They demand also that we’ll be conscious that there is a brutal wage gap between men and women doing the same job; to be conscious that woman isn’t represented enough at the public space; that woman doesn’t occupy managerial positions at the big companies although having a better university education”. On March 2017, a far-right Polish MEP, Janusz Korwin-Mikke, justified at European Parliament that women collect less than men because he considers them "more weak, more small and less intelligent". Unfortunately, it is obvious that there is a work discrimination and a salary inequality. United Nations Program for Development75 calculate Gender Inequality Index (GII), which measure gender inequalities in three important aspects: reproductive health (measured by maternal mortality ratio and adolescent birth rate); empowerment (measured through by share of seats in parliament and population with at least some secondary education) and labour force participation. From 189 countries, Spain ranks 25th in the 2019 report. In the 2018 report it was ranked 25th, among the group of countries with very high human development. Political Far-right threaten women’s rights denying the obvious inequalities that still occur today in different fields, such as: Wage gap: less annual salary than men In Catalonia76, the average gross annual salary difference is of 23.4%. The most significant difference between women and men arrives at the elementary occupations at 32.6%. In 2017, the wage gap of gender reduced to 23% in 74 See Revolución feminista y políticas de lo común frente a la extrema derecha; María Eugenia R. Palop; Icaria. February de 2019; 125 page. 75 See HDR 76 See Women
28
Catalonia, according to the data of the Labour and Production Model
Observatory77.
In Spain, the difference between what women collect, from 20 to 24 years old,
and what men collect at the same age range is 3.027,88 euros. Wage gap
continues being the most alarming element of pay distribution. Asturias, Basque
Country and Navarra show the deepest difference between what collect men and
women78.
Wage gap by gender in Spain 2017 (%)
25,6
23,3 24,1
20,8 20,5 20,9
18,5
16,4 15,8
15,1 14,4
13,7
14,2 13,4
12,8 10,5 8,5 11,9
7,4
1,7
-4,6
Source: INE
February 22 is the European Day for salary equality among men and women.
Wage gap measures the inequality retributive between men and women.
This indicator responds to a complex phenomenon with multiple causes.
According to the European Commission, factors that contribute to wage
inequality stand out the lack of transparency in remuneration systems
77 See Observatory
78 See DifferencesYou can also read
