No number of murders due to gender violence will ever be low enough until it reaches zero, but 2024 culminates in being crowned the year with the lowest number of sexist crimes since records began in 2003. A total of 47 women were murdered at the hands of their partners and ex-partners — 1,292 since 2003. in the same year in which, however, machismo took hold in another of its forms: vicarious violence. Nine minors are the fatal victims of this type of violence, carried out by the abuser with the aim of doing the greatest possible damage to the mother, either through the suffering of her children or close relatives. This is the worst annual figure in the entire historical series, which began in 2013.
The year already started with the dismay of a number of murdered people that broke somewhat with the slight downward trend that had been detected in previous years. In 2023, 58 victims of gender violence were recorded. Eleven more than this 2024, which unseats 2016, 2017 and 2021 as the years with the lowest figures (49 murders). The same cannot be said for the murdered children. Already in summer, the threshold of eight minors murdered in 2018 and 2015 was exceeded which, until this year, marked the maximum number of victims of these sexist crimes, which in practically all cases were committed against children under 9 years old.
Both issues have been the result of discussion throughout these 12 months. The Ministry of Equality has brought together several crisis committees to evaluate where the system could have failed when it came to protecting these women, and Minister Ana Redondo has appealed on more than one occasion to those around the victims to sound the alarm. before a case leads to its most drastic consequence: murder. However, there are still many cases that have come to light this year in which There were previous complaints against the aggressor for sexist violence. Something that reveals one of the gaps in the protection system, especially taking into account that, according to the Prosecutor’s Office, gender violence is the third crime with the highest recidivism in Spain: 40% abuse again.
The risk assessment It is, in fact, one of the weak points of the VioGén system, on whose reform the Government is already working with a view to launching at the beginning of the year a new, improved tool to strengthen the surveillance and protection of women with greater risk of suffering violence. According to Redondo, in mid or late January he will present the new VioGén II System, in charge of monitoring the around 100,000 active cases of victims of sexist violence that currently exist. Furthermore, Equality sources affirm that by the end of the year, almost all of the fifty crisis centers for victims of sexual violence committed during the last legislature, which depend on the autonomous communities, are expected to be operational.
This year the focus has also been placed on the environment of the victims, since Less than 2% of complaints come from family members and close friends of abused women. Furthermore, as the Prosecutor’s Office warned in its latest report, there has been an increase in cases of gender violence among minors, after registering in 2023 the highest number of cases filed in the last four years. The prosecutors highlighted the urgency of reinforcing affective-sexual education for adolescents, among whom they believe that “the great efforts being made in equality training” are not taking hold.
Black year of vicarious violence
This year, Spain has also experienced the dismay of an alarmingly high number of minors murdered by their parents in cases of sexist violence. In March, the Almeria municipality of Abla woke up horrified after learning that Elisa and Larisa, ages 2 and 4, They had been murdered by their father during a visitation regime that he enjoyed this on the weekends despite having a pending trial for mistreatment and threats against his ex-partner, against whom he had a restraining order.
This case highlighted the failures and lack of coordination that still persists between family courts and those handling cases of gender violence. Jurists have been warning for some time that there are still judges who separate the role of father from that of abuser, which ends up resulting in this type of violence, exercised in most cases to cause maximum suffering to the mother. Ajax (5 years old), Yago (8), María (8), Hiba (3), Adam (9), Norma (17) and Cristian (2) They are the other seven fatal victims of vicarious violence in 2024. In 44% of the 9 crimes, there were previous complaints against the abuser for gender violence.
Given this situation, the Ombudsman commissioned a monographic report this year to evaluate possible measures and reforms that increase the protection of minors and their mothers in cases of abuse. In a document of almost a hundred pages, Ángel Gabilondo, requested in November that stricter criteria be applied in custody processes, that coordination between courts be increased and that the systems responsible for assessing the risk of a situation of violence. Nothing negligible, considering that Of the 100,000 women active in the VioGén System, 55,197 have minors in their care.
There is another pending reform, announced by the Minister of Youth and Children, Sira Rego. His department is working on modifying the child protection law, LOPIVI, to explicitly prohibit the so-called parental alienation syndrome (PAS). The objective is to reform the norm promoted by Ione Belarra in 2021, to make it clear by law that in no case can this concept without scientific basis be used in cases of shared custody, since it is considered that it perpetuates the dynamics of sexist violence and re-victimizes minors and women, as has been seen in Spain in cases such as that of Juana Rivas or María Salmerón.
Renewal of the State Pact
Furthermore, vicariousness is one of the new sexist violences that are intended to be included in the renewal of the State Pact against Gender Violence of 2017 on which all the groups in the Congress of Deputies are working. The details of the report being prepared by the spokespersons for the Equality subcommittee are not yet known, although Minister Ana Redondo has already advanced on more than one occasion that its objective was to include vicarious violence, yes, but also digital violence, economic violence, pornography or prostitution. In total, the report is expected to double the current number of measures, around 400, although the subcommittee will continue working on it, at least, until March 31, 2025.
However, the fact that women continue to be murdered, that there continue to be abusive men, that protection orders are not fulfilling their function in all cases and that this year has been so marked by vicarious violence, shows that There is still much to do to eradicate a problem that remains structural. Education, social awareness, support for victims, coordination of courts and institutions and monitoring of repeat offenders are some of the points that will mark next year in the fight against sexist violence. A fight that will not stop until the annual number of murdered people reaches zero.
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