The ASSOCIATION OF WOMEN JUDGES OF SPAIN, on the occasion of the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women, wishes to state:
1st) The elimination of sexist violence is a primary necessity for any State that intends to base its foundations on respect for Human Rights and free coexistence among equals. It is not a simple desideratum, nor a domestic issue. It is a State matter, and as such it must be treated by all Public Powers, every day of the year.
2nd) Since the approval in 2004 of the Organic Law of comprehensive protection measures against Gender Violence, the Spanish State has assumed a leading position in the fight against sexist violence within the countries of our environment, having renewed its commitment to this cause with the State Pact signed by all parliamentary forces in 2017. The fruits of this have been the definitive and irreversible advance towards social rejection of sexist violence, and the substantial improvement of police and judicial protection of women, boys and girls who have to face it day after day.
3rd) Despite the inestimable value of these advances, the figures continue to be deeply worrying. This year 2019, the thousand victims of sexist violence have been reached in our country since statistical data has been collected, violence that, contrary to what is erroneously proclaimed by some poorly informed sources, does have gender. We are talking about 1,027 women murdered by their male partners or ex-partners since 2003. If we take as a reference point the year 2008, in which data began to be collected on men killed by their female partners or ex-partners, we are talking about 639 women murdered by their male partners or ex-partners (88.8%), compared to 81 men (11.2%). We are talking about 4,432 male inmates in penitentiary centers in January 2019 for crimes of gender violence compared to 11 women, and 7,675 male inmates in penitentiary centers for gender violence and/or sexual violence, compared to 52 women. It is not domestic violence, it is not domestic violence, it is violence exerted by men against women, which finds its main source in a global conception of the roles that women and men are called to fulfill in our society, a conception that receives a clear and simple name in our language: machismo. It is, therefore, sexist violence.
4th) It is necessary to give the definitive impulse to the State Pact signed in 2017, adapt our legislation to the Istanbul Convention, including within the special legislation against gender violence sexual violence, forced marriages, trafficking of women and girls, and any other forms of violence that affect women disproportionately. We must remember that the Istanbul Convention is not a mere declaration of intentions: international conventions validly published in Spain become part of our internal legal system, as described in the Constitution itself (article 96.1), as well as in Law 23/14, on Mutual recognition of judicial resolutions.
5th) The advances that have occurred in the criminal protection of women must be reinforced and complemented with equally significant advances in other areas: socio-health, welfare, labor. Criminal defense and protection are essential for women victims of this violence, but they will never be enough to overcome and eradicate it. We must insist on the need to dedicate adequate resources, both human and material, to combat sexist violence from all fronts, from all institutions and in all its facets, from its very origin.
6th) We consider education as the most effective preventive means in the prevention against any type of discrimination, and in particular against inequalities between men and women. Inequalities that, taken to their most radical expression, may lead to sexist violence. Because boys and girls are not only our future; they are already our present.
The ASSOCIATION OF WOMEN JUDGES OF SPAIN offers its absolute collaboration to all Public Powers and institutions to continue advancing together in the line initiated by the Comprehensive Law and endorsed by the State Pact against gender violence.