Today, November 25th, day against gender violence, I would like to invite you to reflect on the public system we currently have to combat a social problem created by a historically patriarchal society.
Let's ask ourselves the following questions: what do we offer to victims of gender violence today? Do we offer immediate reception centers, shelters or apartments? What do all these services have in common? The victim. The one who has to leave her home, sometimes her family, and in the most extreme situations, her land.
We offer an island service that every day attends, with the few resources it has, more situations of gender violence.
And yes, these protection resources are necessary, just as it would be necessary to have a 24-hour Crisis Center for sexual assaults on our island. But wouldn't it be more logical and fair for the aggressor to be the one who should leave the home, the land and the family?
Women who have been victims of gender violence have enough to feel humiliated, devalued, ashamed and guilty, so that they also have to feel alone and uprooted from their environment.
I invite, not today but every day, to try to imagine a different system, a fairer system, where we do not victimize the victims even more because today we do not conceive another way to protect them. The moment must come when protection and security is not at the cost of leaving their life behind. A future where it is not necessary to have a day on the calendar to claim NO to gender violence. A future where the values of respect for women are instilled in the whole society.
I end with a total and absolute contempt for the statements that the deputy of the extreme right made about the Minister of Equality Irene Montero, and wishing that these types of people do not achieve political representation. Machismo cannot have representation in a democracy.
*Daisy Villalba, national secretary of Health and Social Services of Nueva Canarias.
