The former Minister of Equality and MEP of Podemos Irene Montero has responded to the statements of the mayor of Tinajo, Jesús Machín (Coalición Canaria), who stated in the last municipal plenary session that he housed male abusers in hotels in cases of gender violence to avoid their arrest.
Machín's statements have been covered by the national press, although he has apologized in a press release and has clarified that he actually housed victims of gender violence in hotels and not the aggressors, citing the lack of resources for women in the municipality.
Institutional obligation to protect victims of gender violence
Irene Montero has reminded the mayor of Tinajo on her X account that the institutional obligation of a mayor is to "provide means to protect women, not male abusers".
At the same time, she pointed out that "then they will tell you that the problem is women who destroy the lives of innocent men with anonymous accusations".
In this sense, the former Minister of Equality in the previous legislature has asked the mayor of Tinajo to stop "putting women's lives at risk".
The forceful response: "Gender violence is not a mishap"
The current MEP of Podemos has also responded to Machín's statements, who referred to a case of gender violence as "a mishap", and has said that gender violence is not "a mishap" nor "a hard divorce" as Alberto Nuñez Feijóo (Partido Popular) said.
Finally, she indicated that "an abuser is never a good father", since Machín was talking about one of the occasions in which the Local Police had intervened, there were "children involved".
The former minister has thus joined the reactions of the PSOE of Tinajo and the Partido Popular who have described these statements as "deeply serious and inadmissible" and have asked that he document his justification.
