Interior orders extraordinary actions to stop the wave of “sexist terrorism”

Spain is experiencing the worst plague of gender crimes in the last two decades. Twelve murdered in four weeks, six of them in the last six days, and at least one other case under investigation in Benidorm, which would be the thirteenth. Government and communities have activated the alarms of all the departments involved in the fight against this scourge and at the same time call on the whole of society to get personally involved in stopping this wave of unknown dimensions of what the Minister of the Interior today labeled “terrorism”. sexist”. “The time has come to say enough is enough. Each citizen must commit to and take responsibility for the defense of the women around them. At the slightest indication, it must be reported to the security forces, ”Fernando Grande-Marlaska claimed without hiding the seriousness of the moment.

The head of Interior, despite stressing that Spain has one of the best systems to combat gender violence – “a world benchmark” – called an emergency press conference to ask for the complicity of all Spaniards and to explain that he has given extraordinary orders to all the police stations and barracks in the country to try to stop this “terrible” and “unusual” avalanche of crimes, which he assured does not respond to any logic, “neither temporary nor of any kind.” He did not hide the fact that, despite the efforts of the police, judges and social services, the effectiveness in this fight could be improved, as shown by the fact that the partners or ex-partners of more than half of those murdered had already been denounced as abusers, a percentage that doubles or triples the usual (20% of deaths with a prior complaint) and that makes it evident that it has been late.

The minister has launched four immediate actions. The first, it has sent circulars to all National Police and Civil Guard posts to demand that they intensify and “even more extreme” all their actions to combat gender violence and, in particular, that they redouble operations to achieve “strict compliance » of all security measures that protect victims.

Secondly, it has ordered that when making decisions based on the results of the VioGén system, the police program that assesses the degree of risk faced by the abused woman and her children based on the analysis of its database and the exhaustive introduction of the information on the case, “always” prevails in case of doubt, the assessment that most guarantees the safety of those affected.

Attention to vulnerable victims

The third block of orders aims to neutralize those who qualify as “persistent aggressors”, the abusers with repeated actions, many of them with attacks on several women and who are “refractory” to rehabilitation. The security forces will redouble their surveillance and control over these men, who are directly responsible for several of the latest crimes. But Interior will go one step further. With the approval of the Prosecutor’s Office, which considers that there is no violation of rights, a protocol will be put in place to communicate to all women who live or are romantically related to a “persistent aggressor” the history of their partner, so that they know what kind of monster is the person they are with -something they are often unaware- and so that, based on that information, they can make the decisions they deem appropriate before it may be too late.

The fourth extraordinary measure that Grande-Marlaska has ordered is that the agents pay special attention to what he called the most vulnerable victims, who are those who, despite living with or having had a relationship with an abuser, on many occasions a “persistent aggressor », it is not easy for them to denounce him or ask for help for multiple issues such as age, fear, rural loneliness, personal or economic dependence, etc. The minister recalled that, among many other measures implemented “successfully” in recent months, is the plan that orders the investigation and protection of women and children who, even though there is no complaint, are suspected of being victims of mistreatment through communications from social services or clues provided by relatives or neighbors.