Fight against gender violence an ‘absolute priority’
PM Pedro Sánchez has chaired a plenary session of the national observatory on violence against women.
The emergency meeting was ‘motivated by the seriousness of the most recent figures which show 10 women killed as a result of male violence and seven children killed as a result of vicarious violence in less than four months’, explained a government spokesman.
Sr Sánchez said the renewal of the state pact against gender-based violence has been set as a priority in the short term.
He began his speech with a ‘clear and resounding message’, stating that this is a matter of state, and that ‘there is no room for negationist discourse or discourse that dilutes this structural violence by twisting the language’.
The PM said the state pact is a fundamental tool that ‘must be improved, evaluated and adapted to the circumstances of today’s society’.
But he pointed out that this is ‘clearly not enough’ and ‘we must continue to persevere with the policies that are already in place and that work, and also correct any shortcomings and design new mechanisms to combat this structural violence’.
Specifically with regard to vicarious violence, he stressed the need to ‘conduct more indepth analysis of child murder cases, to strengthen coordination between judicial bodies and between administrations that have competences and powers in this area, and to continue working on training on the gender perspective and children’s perspectives for the judiciary, public prosecutors, forensic bodies, assessment teams, social services and child protection’.
All of these measures, he added, should be very much present in the renewal of the state pact, which is ‘an absolute priority in the short term’.
Sr Sánchez highlighted the importance of all administrations ‘recognising the violence perpetrated against women for the mere fact of being women’, and that there should be ‘no room for doubt, nor room for other interpretations that minimise or dilute the severity of male violence and that hark back to a time that is fortunately now behind us’.