Black January, new victims and old vices of the system

In January, six women have been murdered by their partners or exes, with a concentration of four cases in the first days, which continued a series of 13 other fatalities in previous days. The murdered women were between 24 and 46 years old, and they only agreed that they had wanted to turn the tide of an unhealthy relationship, as has been gathered from the testimony of neighbors and relatives.

At least two of the six women had denounced their murderer, four of whom were registered in VioGén for a history of gender violence and even detained just days before committing the crime they had already planned. Although in theory they were on the radar of the security forces, the deployment of means dedicated to the protection of the threats was inefficient.

This space collects the stories of women murdered by gender violence and began in 2022:

Know their stories

# of women murdered since 2003
# of children killed since 2013

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  Valladolid (Castile and Leon)

  23 Jan | Entrepreneur in the cosmetics sector, she worked in the family firm that bears her last name. She had an eight-year-old daughter, who was also killed.

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  Valladolid (Castile and Leon)

  23 Jan | It was Paloma’s daughter. she was eight years old.

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  Balaguer (Lleida)

  Jan 18 | Mother of five children (three girls and two boys), she was born in Barcelona. Little of her has come out of her life and as an echo of her existence there remains only the slander of whom she took her life, and that to avoid jail she assured that she had suicidal tendencies.

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  Marbella (Andalusia)

  8 Jan | She was a nursing assistant, although she worked as a domestic worker, and had emigrated to Spain in 2017, leaving her son in her native Cali (Colombia). Her life ended on a Marbella beach, to which her executioner took her to murder and mutilate her.

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  Adeje (Tenerife)

  8 Jan | I was a receptionist at a hotel in Tenerife, on the afternoon shift. She has been separated since 2019, at 11:00 p.m. she returned home with her four children, two minors and two older ones. They tried to save her. One confronted the attacker and the other tried to prevent her mother from bleeding to death.

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  Cadiz (Cadiz)

  8 Jan | I was waiting for February to participate in the carnival troupes in Cádiz. With two children aged 18 and 13, she had divorced and had a new partner with whom she lived in Valdelagrana. He shot her at her house.

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  Piedrabuena (Ciudad Real)

  8 Jan | She had a three-year-old girl, was married to a 30-year-old man, and played futsal. On the night of January 7, she left her with her friends, and when she returned, her partner, who had left her daughter with her grandparents, stabbed her looking for the heart.

The executioner of Belén is 30 years old, his name is Eduardo and he has also been accused of habitual mistreatment; he called 911 and said she had fallen on the knife. Eva’s, with whom he had been dating for eight months, is related to drug trafficking in Cádiz; named Carlos, he was registered by the Ministry of the Interior as an aggressor. Hayate’s murderer, one of the two foreigners in this macho series and at the age of 44, sent several WhatsApp messages about his intentions, put on gloves, picked up a 30-centimeter knife and waited for the mother of his two children; he had already been denounced by his victim a few days before. It was useless. The month closes with six women murdered, totaling 1,188 since a specific record of the worst face of macho barbarity was kept in 2003. They left eleven orphans. There was also an eight-year-old victim.

The three assassins acted on the same day. On January 8, the date on which the torso of a woman was found floating in the sea, colliding with a jetty from where the diners of a beach bar notified the police. Disappeared the first days of the year, Natalia had been decapitated and mutilated with a radio by a man with whom she had had a sentimental relationship for five months; A Colombian like her, 45, had been sentenced for threatening someone he would later kill, although he was still at large. The four crimes have been classified as premeditated and intentional, according to the instructions known to date.

This January has been the ninth bloodiest start to the year for the series (which since 2003 has had a peak of nine fatalities), followed by the death of Elisabeth, 38, stabbed in the stomach while she slept. Her murderer was the person with whom she shared her bed: Enric, 44 years old and with various false profiles on social networks, who called the Mossos in the morning to say that he had woken up with her dead; he maintained that she wanted to commit suicide but after the autopsy he was arrested.

The month closed with an episode of the most painful infamy, the murder of a girl when the murderer sneaked into their house with the intention of ending their lives. David, 45, with a history of gender-based violence, did it at dawn, who had been in a relationship with Paloma, 46, but was not the father of the eight-year-old girl. He waited several hours to call his sister and say: “I killed Paloma.” Her brother-in-law notified the police. The girl was found lifeless with several stab wounds to the back, perhaps murdered after calling her relatives, and he with minor self-inflicted cuts.

In addition to the sexist phenomenon that encourages the murder of women, the concentration of cases has caused social alarm at the evidence of the real lack of protection faced by the victims. This black January, the Prosecutor’s Office, the Ministry of the Interior and the Judiciary have announced the reinforcement of their actions against the aggressors. In reality, it is about applying the measures that already exist and the protocols that are available to them more vigorously.

The Prosecutor’s Office asked its prosecutors to continue the accusations and request more protection orders even if the victim refuses to testify. The police and other security forces will monitor the aggressors more closely and the General Council of the Judiciary will try to increase the specialization of the courts. Meanwhile, women continue to be exposed to the fact that if their partner or ex decides to kill them, she will do it or, at least, leave them seriously injured.