On the night from Saturday to Sunday, a man killed his wife in Estepa (Seville) and then committed suicide. It is the last case of sexist violence recorded in our country and the second of the year in the province of Seville.
The unbearable trickle of sexist murders, or other types of violence against women, is a reality that, however, continues to be denied by the extreme right, while its government partners in different administrations, the Popular Party, surprise with making certain decisions when approaching 8M, International Women’s Day, or in this case 25N, the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women.
In Toledo this year there will be no demonstration by the Local Women’s Council this coming Monday, November 25. And there won’t be for the first time in 30 years. It is “historic” and a “unilateral decision” by the PP and Vox government team in the Toledo City Council, as denounced by both IU and the PSOE and the Progressive Women’s Association in the city.
In the last few hours, it has become known that there will be no protest march to denounce the violence that is exercised against women and demand equality policies for its complete eradication.
The decision was communicated by the Councilor for Social Affairs, Inclusion, Family and Seniors, Marisol Illescas, after sending a WhatsApp on Friday afternoon to the organizations and political formations that are members of the Local Women’s Council.
According to the representative of Izquierda Unida in the Local Women’s Council of Toledo, Elisa Fernández, they were informed “unilaterally”, “ignoring and disrespecting”, of the cancellation of the demonstration that is traditionally called every November 25 this municipal body,
It has only taken you one year to eliminate a demonstration protesting 30 years of history in Toledo
Elisa Fernandez
— Member of IU and the Local Women’s Council in Toledo
“It has only taken you a year to eliminate a protest demonstration with 30 years of history in Toledo,” he said in a statement in which he claims not to give “credit” to “the manners.” Elisa Fernández rejects the argument put forward to eliminate the demonstration: some works on the rise of Real del Arrabal street – along which the march would run – although in recent days the circulation of vehicles has already been allowed.
A gesture that, they say, adds to last year’s precedent. It was Carlos Velázquez’s first as mayor of Toledo after his pact with Vox in the City Council and “he was not” at the 25N march. This year, they reproach, “there is not even a demonstration anymore.”
“The objective of this government is to dismantle decades of advances in rights and freedoms”
The Municipal Socialist Group of the Toledo City Council has described it as a “serious setback” in equality policies. There are precedents. As soon as they arrived at the local government, PP and Vox eliminated the Department of Equality.
Last summer, a motion by the socialists advocated recovering it, but it was rejected with votes against Vox, and also the PP.
On Friday, during the municipal plenary session, the lack of unanimity once again prevented the approval of an institutional declaration in the Toledo City Council for 25N to reject sexist violence. And it’s been five years now. To this, the socialists have recalled today, is added, among other things, “the invisibilization of the LGTBI collective, the prohibition of the rainbow flag.” A few months ago, an episode experienced in a municipal plenary session went viral when the mayor rejected the display of the LGTBI flag and asked a local police officer to remove it.
Now, the socialists say, with the elimination of the 25N protest march “they make clear the objective of this government: to dismantle decades of advances in rights and freedoms.”
“The decision to boycott the International Day against Gender Violence is not only a betrayal of the women of Toledo, but a direct attack on the dignity of the victims of sexist violence and those who work every day to eradicate it,” denounced the socialist vice spokesperson Ana Abellán, to emphasize that this 25N, “the mayor, at the service of a denialist extreme right, tries to silence the clamor of those who fight against a scourge that has taken the lives of 40 women so far this year.”
For Abellán, “eliminating the 25N march is a shameful act that reveals the true face of this government: one that despises feminist achievements and abandons its responsibility to protect women. “His mockery of the Local Women’s Council, a body that for 30 years has been a bastion of dialogue and proposals, is not only a lack of respect, but an attempt to silence the voices that defend equality.”
“From the PSOE we demand that the mayor and his team immediately rectify these intolerable decisions and we remind them that the fight for equality is not negotiable nor can it be the object of political marketing with Vox.”
We are not going to allow any organization, institution or political party to use its power to make invisible a social and structural scourge that constantly claims the lives of women.
Nuria Cuevas
— President of the Toledo Progressive Women’s Association
Criticism also comes from the Toledo Progressive Women’s Association. Its president Nuria Cuevas reproaches that both the mayor and the councilor for the sector have “prevented” the demonstration with the excuse of some works.
The march, according to IU, will be replaced by a “commemorative event”, in parallel, in the Corral de Don Diego in Toledo. These facts show, according to Elisa Fernández, that “co-governance with a party that denies sexist violence has too much weight in our City Council and imposes priorities, without forming feminism and the fight against gender violence part of them,” censorship in reference to Vox without citing it.
“Gender violence has historically been a problem relegated to the private sphere that the feminist movement has managed to make visible with great effort, denounce it and position it in the public sphere,” adds Nuria Cuevas, who affirms that women’s organizations “we are not going to consent “That no organization, institution or political party uses its power to make invisible a social and structural scourge that constantly claims the lives of women.”
They demand that the Government team of the Toledo City Council “compliance with its mission and apply equality policies that give due consideration to the murders of women due to gender violence and their sons and daughters due to vicarious violence, as the cruelest form.” .
Following the decision, IU encourages citizens to “continue with the demands” and participate in the demonstration called by the feminist movement Plataforma 8M, which has confirmed that it will depart from La Vega towards the Plaza de Zocodover at 6 p.m.
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