Eight women and one girl murdered in the first month of the year.
Eight women and one girl murdered in January in the Spanish State, nine femicides that are not isolated events but respond to a network of deeply patriarchal relationships existing in our society. And what is the answer? In practice, they become just another number added to the list of victims of gender violence. Sometimes I think that we have become so accustomed to hearing about new sexist murders that we have begun to normalize the horror, to assume it as an inevitable evil. And that vision shakes me. But I must also recognize that each new case increases my indignation at the responses given by public institutions. The seriousness of sexist violence insistently indicates that something is failing, making it clear that this violence is not combated with policies that only address its consequences, or with judicialization and punitivism; that the fight to eliminate it, despite public declarations, has not occupied a priority place on political agendas, because if it were, we would already have an evaluation of the policies developed and the implementation of comprehensive, transformative public policies with real impact would not be further delayed.
The reality is that there are continuous breaches by public authorities in their obligations in relation to prevention and education, comprehensive care resources are clearly insufficient, professional training is scarce, there is a clear lack of comprehensive violence approach circuits, the persistent patriarchal bias of justice is undeniable...; and every year, in the last quarter, the money from the State Pact ends up being used in a set of specific and disjointed activities, in making bags, t-shirts, folders, pens... because in the absence of political planning, the Institutions find that they receive millions of euros to spend in a couple of months... And to this harsh reality has been added a tenacious discourse from the far right that denies gender violence, spreads lies, fuels the myth of false accusations and resorts to xenophobia, messages that are permeating a part of society, legitimizing many situations of violence, attitudes and sexist behaviors in everyday life.
The Canary Islands is at the forefront among the territories of the Spanish State with the most sexist murders and complaints. According to data provided by the director of the Canarian Institute of Equality (ICI), at the "Evaluation of Public Policy on Gender Violence" conference held on January 23 in the Parliament of the Canary Islands, in 2019, 14,600 calls related to sexist violence were received on the 112 emergency telephone, that is, 43 calls per day. Of these, 8,000 (55%) were emergency (imminent danger), 3,680 (25%) were urgent (subjective risk) and 2,800 (20%) were information, data that demonstrate the magnitude of this reality.
Transversal and intersectional policies, real and effective, are necessary.
But how to face it? To end sexist violence, it is necessary to change the organization of work, the economy and care, to transform our society into a more egalitarian, equitable and just space, where we have the same rights beyond being women or men. If sexist violence is a structural problem, it can only be addressed with comprehensive policies, equipped with the human and material resources necessary for women to feel empowered, supported and accompanied. Improving specific legislation and raising awareness that promotes a solid social conscience, as well as firmness against those who insist on questioning it, are priority tasks.
And increasingly, it is recognized that the fundamental line in the fight against sexist violence is prevention through education. We agree, but the difficulty appears in its concretion. This line of action is usually restricted to workshops in secondary schools to identify and address sexist situations in adolescence. They are necessary, but their effectiveness is limited. It is essential to promote an educational model, in the different contexts in which people move, that puts life and its care at its center, that provides tools to build masculinities and femininities, in their broad diversity, that do not imply domination or subordination, nor are a breeding ground for violence and relationships, in equality from diversity, with shared care. And this implies a change in educational curricula, in school organization, in the relationships that are established in educational centers, in the educational methodology... with the explicit incorporation of affective and sexual education as one of its fundamental axes.
This education in shared care, from the earliest ages, will collaborate in the prevention of sexist violence, since we will be providing instruments to relate in a positive way, to not commit or allow a single sexist or lgtbiphobic aggression in their lives; contributing to the construction of a society in which respect, equality, diversity, solidarity, justice and care are its basic values.
What can we expect from "progressive" governments?
In these days, on the one hand, the infographics presenting the new Organic Law of Education (LOMLOE) project that the Spanish government wants to carry out have been made public and it has caught our attention that Affective Sexual Education does not appear in them. And on the other hand, we have heard the director of the ICI, at the aforementioned conference, recognizing that the current situation of the Canary Islands in the application of the State Pact on Gender Violence "is a failure because we have not been able to execute the credits given so far." Likewise, in relation to the ICI's lines of action, she highlights that "One of the things that could be improved is to program and plan in the medium or long term with the main agents involved", and that "they are going to work and plan in the long term with the local security forces and with the media".
Faced with this, we can only ask ourselves, what has been done so far? Where is the evaluation of the policies developed? What is going to be done? Has the gender perspective been applied to the 2020 budgets, as the ICI proposed last November that it was necessary to do? What are the specific transversal and intersectional policies of the government of the Canary Islands in relation to the fight against sexist violence? Are the formulas already specified to execute the credits that arrive from the State Pact against gender violence?
Many doubts after six months of the Canary Islands government. The "progressive" policies cannot only count all the murdered women, without putting the counter to zero, and define the government as feminist. Courageous policies are required, which include an important package of measures, from a transversal and intersectional approach, with their corresponding budget items, in the short, medium and long term, which guarantee that sexist violence in the Canary Islands can be legally, judicially and socially cornered. And in this package, the commitment to co-education and affective and sexual education must be unquestionably specified. We must manage to tip the social balance towards shared care, towards lives worthy of being lived. And in this, the values that are promoted in education acquire a fundamental role. We still trust that there will be political will not to miss this opportunity!
Mary C. Bolaños Espinosa. Harimaguada Collective
