The Department of Social Welfare, Equality and Immigration of the Arrecife City Council has incorporated a new mobile structure for the Violet Points, unique in Lanzarote, which was launched during the San Ginés Festivals and will be available from now on at those festivals, events, and leisure spaces in the municipality that require this service. The new infrastructure allows for a stable, safe, and confidential space for the attention of possible victims of sexist and sexual violence.
Under the slogan “For Festivals Free of Sexist Violence,” the Department of Social Welfare is once again implementing this municipal service at events with the largest public concentration, but this year it is taking a step forward with an infrastructure that replaces the traditional tents used in previous editions and substantially improves the conditions under which professionals provide attention to possible victims.
The new structure has been designed taking into special account the climatic conditions of Lanzarote, and particularly the wind, which in previous years sometimes forced the removal of the tent enclosures for safety reasons. This circumstance could compromise the privacy required by a woman who has just suffered a situation of violence or who needs a space for protection and attention.
The new Violet Point allows for a closed, stable space to be available throughout the service, prepared to guarantee privacy, so that professionals can carry out their intervention with the safety and dignity required for crisis intervention.
The Councilor for Social Welfare, Equality and Immigration, Maite Corujo, highlights that this improvement “means much more than changing a tent for a different structure.” “We are talking about ensuring that, if a woman needs help during the festivals, she finds a space where she can feel safe, protected, and heard, and where our professionals can intervene with all guarantees,” she points out.
Corujo underlines that “prevention and awareness are fundamental, but we also have to be prepared to respond when an assault occurs”. “We cannot ask a woman to step forward, to ask for help and to trust public services only to then not offer her the conditions of intimacy and security she needs at that moment. With this new infrastructure, we are taking a very important step in that direction,” she states.
The Violet Point functions as a safe space for information, awareness, and prevention against any manifestation of sexist violence, including sexual violence. But, in addition, it has prepared professionals to offer initial specialized and on-site crisis care in case an assault occurs, accompanying the victim and activating, when necessary, the corresponding resources.
For his part, the deputy mayor and councilor for Festivities, Echedey Eugenio, emphasizes that “large, massive, and participatory festivals must also be safe festivals”. “From the City Council, we want San Ginés to be a space of respect, fun, and freedom, but we are clear that there can be no freedom if there are women who feel fear or who may suffer an assault,” he states.
Eugenio highlights that “this new structure of the Violet Point demonstrates that security and attention to potential victims cannot be reduced to a message”. “Public services must be provided with the necessary means to act, and that is what we are doing this year in San Ginés: improving an existing resource so that it can provide even more effective, professional, and, above all, respectful attention to the intimacy of those who need help,” he adds.
Three nights of San Ginés with Violet Point
After opening for the first time this Saturday, August 15, the device will be operational during these San Ginés festivities for two more days, coinciding with those events that concentrate a greater influx and movement of people:
Saturday, August 22: San Ginés Joven, at the Fairgrounds, from 8:00 PM to 1:00 AM.
Tuesday, August 25: Closing concert of the festivities and fireworks display, at the Fairgrounds, from 8:00 PM to 1:30 AM.
It should be remembered that the Violet Point is not only a place to go when an assault has already occurred. It also constitutes a point of information, prevention, and awareness, open to anyone who needs guidance or wants to know how to act in a possible situation of sexist violence.
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