The spokesperson for Equality of the Socialist Parliamentary Group, Elena Máñez, considered “absolutely unjustifiable” and “senseless” the cuts contemplated in the Canary Islands' Budget for 2024 to protect women victims of gender violence, despite the increase of more than 1,120 million euros in the regional accounts.
The spokesperson for Equality of the Socialist Parliamentary Group, Elena Máñez, has pointed out as "absolutely unjustifiable" and "senseless" that the Government of the Canary Islands has cut the protection of women victims of gender violence in the regional Budgets for 2024. This cut occurs despite the fact that the increase in the annual accounts is 1,120 million euros.
Máñez spoke this Tuesday in the parliamentary commission on Social Rights and Equality with a question from the Socialist Group on the measures that are planned to be adopted in the face of the increase in cases of sexist murders, in which she warned that since January 1, 2003, 1,237 women have been murdered in Spain, and that in the Canary Islands there have been 106 femicides and eight minors who have been fatal victims of sexist violence.
She also highlighted the results of the Diagnosis on the perceptions and attitudes of Canary Islands youth towards gender violence presented in 2021, which makes it clear that the degree of knowledge about inequality and discrimination has improved, especially in women, but this better knowledge is not always reflected in practice. In fact, 18% of men between 18 and 29 years old still deny sexist violence.
The study also reveals that 22% of young people have exercised gender violence, while 70% of young women have experienced or know about sexist violence, 20% declare having suffered it, and 40% consider it quite or very likely to suffer it in the future.
For this reason, she considered that the work of raising awareness and prevention among the young population must be intensified, “and there the Canary Islands Institute of Equality (ICI) has to lead jointly with the General Directorate of Youth and the Ministry of Education, the training of teachers, to provide them with the appropriate tools to address the causes that affect the perpetuation of violence, as well as intervention and protection measures aimed at students.”
In this sense, she rejected the Budget planned by the Government of the Canary Islands and the cuts in the ICI, recalling that the Feminist Network of Gran Canaria has already asked the regional Executive to back down from the “drastic” cut due to its “scarce interest and political will when dealing with such a complex structural problem.”
Máñez announced the presentation of amendments by the Socialist Group to the budgets to correct “this nonsense.” “Precisely the year that the institutional campaign focuses on economic violence, it is the ICI itself that exerts economic violence by cutting aid to women in situations of gender violence.”
For the socialist deputy, it is “absolutely unjustifiable” that, with a budget that grows by more than 1,120 million euros, they cut aid aimed at women victims of gender violence.
Specifically, she referred to the cut in the Canary Islands Social Emergency Fund for Women Victims of Gender Violence, which has gone from 840,000 to 390,000 euros, and the item aimed at women victims of gender violence with special difficulties in finding employment, which goes from 1,540,301 euros to 700,000 (840,000 euros less). In 2022, aid was granted for almost one million euros, so the 700,000 euros allocated in the Budget are “clearly insufficient.”
In addition, she recalled that the Canary Islands Government has not yet signed the agreements with the island councils. “These Budgets neither improve management compared to the previous Government, nor do they improve the budgets of the Pact of the Flowers aimed at caring for women victims of gender violence.”
