“The association of women is important, for political influence, for support, and because its mission is the eradication of gender violence. And at the international level, unity is strength. Because there are challenges, such as the abolition of prostitution, that require supranational actions to be effective.”
The pioneering feminist lawyer and president of the international entity “Women for Peace”, Consuelo Abril, thus began the inaugural intervention of the conference Violence against women, a global perspective organized by the social and cultural association for women Mararía and Canarias Equipo Europa with funding from the Canary Islands Institute of Equality. Along these lines, she considered that in the face of the administration's lack of response to victims of male chauvinist violence, in a behavior that she described as “institutional violence”, “associations play a fundamental role thanks to the knowledge they treasure and their permanent listening”.
The judge and member of the General Council of the Judiciary, Lucía Avilés, also highlighted the strategic value of networks and “adding perspectives”. Founder of the Association of Women Judges of Spain, she considered that the female presence in the spheres of power is essential “to change the patriarchal inertia and because it is a privileged loudspeaker for the egalitarian message”. And from her professional responsibility, Avilés referred to economic gender violence “which is recognized as such in the successive State Pacts but not in the Penal Code or in the Comprehensive Law”. She pointed out that it can be linked to psychological and/or vicarious violence and argued as an attack on Human Rights by virtue of the transposition of European regulations to member states.
The morning concluded with the presentation by the director of the Feminicidio.net observatory, Graciela Atencio, who emphasized the fact that women's associations work for women “and also for the rest of society”. “The most advanced countries are also the most egalitarian”, she said. She offered the chilling data of murders of women “for the fact of being so, which is supposed to be a form of genocide, because they do not attend to race, age, religion, origin or any other factor”. In Spain, 1575 women have been murdered in this framework of violence since 2010, when the count began, one every four days; ten women are eliminated a day in Mexico, as were 48,000 worldwide in 2022, referring exclusively to those killed at the hands of partners or ex-partners.
In the initial stages of the morning, the president of Mararía, Nieves Rosa Hernández, the Minister of Social Welfare, Marci Acuña, the island director of the General Administration of the State, Pedro Viera, and the president of Canarias Equipo Europa and co-organizer of the Conference, Diego Ruiz, welcomed and intervened.
Against sexual exploitation and trafficking
One of the most shocking interventions of this year's call was that of the popular educator and prostitution survivor, Sonia Sánchez, who conveyed the abuse she was subjected to for more than 20 years “converted into mouth, vagina and anus”, and the rage that mobilizes her. “When the State rescues women victims of torturing prostituting men, it does not restore rights, it only transfers bodies; it takes years to rebuild ourselves, no woman survivor of trafficking for sexual exploitation is healthy. Alive yes, but not healthy”.
The afternoon was closed by the director of the Basque NGO Haurralde and president of the COMPI Coordinator, Patricia Ponce, who reviewed the international women's conferences from Beijing, in 1995, the 2030 agenda and CSW69, and warned of the aftereffects of patriarchy, the rise of the extreme right and the threat to the rights conquered by women. She assured that the feminist mobilization for equality is more necessary and urgent today than ever and opted for collaborative and networked work and dialogue as the most powerful transformation tool.
The first day had a golden ending thanks to the splendid voice of Marey Martín Calero, who performed several songs from the Canarian repertoire inspired by women.
Second day
Friday morning was devoted to feminism in the context of the European Union and the Mediterranean. The session was opened by the Doctor of Political Science, member of the EU Committee of Experts and author of the book Twelve European Women. Building the European Union, Susana del Río, who spoke about the history and future of women in the strategic and geopolitical projection of Europe. The attendees at the presentations received a copy of the work, which reviews with a gender perspective issues such as Brexit, coordinated vaccination, Next Generation funds, the double ecological and digital transition, energy, defense or common security, through the eyes of twelve European women “full of light”.
She highlighted that 73 percent of the population of the European Union is proud to be so, “the highest figure since 2007”, and that 81 percent of the total “feels safer under the umbrella of the Union, in these turbulent times”.
The Doctor of Law, expert in international cooperation, gender, family law and migration, Houda Zekri, addressed in her turn the digital violence against women in Morocco and pointed out that, although the 2011 Constitution recognizes gender equality and at the international level has signed various agreements, leisure speeches, cyber harassment, the dissemination of non-consensual sexual content, affects women in that country as in the rest of the world.
Among the most anachronistic realities, she highlighted relations outside of marriage as constituting a prison sentence, when they are considered the result of “improper conduct”, which was described by Zekri as institutional violence, “which revictimizes women, makes them responsible for the aggressions and generates impunity”. She assured that only 10 percent of women report, for fear of the consequences and valued the misnamed “Law against Gender Violence”, which is a set of reforms of the Penal Code, but which typify cyberviolence behaviors.
“What has been achieved in Morocco, thanks to the feminist movement, is colossal, our family law is used as a reference in the Muslim world, and although conservatives accuse us of following Western guidelines, what matters is to combat injustice, which is a universal humanitarian value. The embrace between women is necessary, beyond borders”, she said.
The last intervention was given by the journalist Sonia Marco, with her conference Women of the Mediterranean so far, so close. Turkish, Lebanese, Tunisian and Croatian women at the Mediterranean crossroads. The communication expert and audiovisual producer introduced the public to the recent history of these cultures and the advances and setbacks in terms of equality with her speech and the projection of pills from her documentaries. Honor crimes, rights to divorce and abortion, economic violence, the use of the veil and the jasmine revolutions star in the audiovisual story.
