More and more women go to care services for victims of sexist violence, but on the other side there is a network of workers mired in precariousness and saturation. It is the main complaint with which this Saturday employees from various communities will attend a meeting that different feminist organizations have called in Madrid. Conceived as a first step to forge alliances, the meeting will focus on “the instability” of the care system, which they describe as a “structural problem” for the more than 5,000 workers at a time when complaints continue to increase.
With the exception of the drastic drop they suffered in 2020, the year of the pandemic, these have been on a sustained rise for years: thus, in 2013, the courts received a total of 124,894 complaints of gender violence, according to data from the General Council of Power Judicial. The figure is 59% higher in 2023, a decade later, when 199,282 were filed. So far this year, 38 women have been murdered by their partners or ex-partners.
The situation differs between communities and even city councils, but there are widespread demands that will be put on the table this Saturday, explains Paqui Guisado, president of the Gender Now Impact Platform, one of the promoters: “Many women are beginning to have more confidence in the public services, but that must be accompanied by good coverage. “We cannot talk about eradicating gender violence if we do not have adequate public services.” Almost 20 years after the approval of the Comprehensive Law against Gender Violence, which has placed Spain as one of the global references in the matter, comprehensive care “has not been stabilized nor has it been provided with sufficient personnel,” summarizes the expert.
That is why in Madrid the workers have been mobilized for months. Their fatigue has led them to chain two strikes over the conditions of municipal services and the complaints are replicated in a good part of the country such as Andalusia, the Balearic Islands, Extremadura, Asturias or Castilla y León, where workers will also attend the meeting. The situation does not depend so much on the political colors of those who govern, say the workers, although “it is now being much more bloody in executives of Vox and the PP where services are even threatened or questioned,” Guisado illustrates.
Two months until an appointment
“There is a lot of prevention campaign, ‘act’ and ‘report’ and I think that is reaching women, but there is not enough resources. We do not have the means to be able to serve them correctly and with quality. The overflow of the network is general and we cannot cope,” summarizes Helena Cobas, social worker at the Gender Violence Assistance Service (SAVG 24 hours) in Madrid.
Until the drifts occur, it can take a month to wait and during that time you can’t even call them to see how they are. In that period of time, they are sometimes forced to return to their partners.
Helena Cobas
— SAVG worker 24 hours in Madrid
Cobas, a member of the workers’ platform that is promoting the mobilizations, denounces that the waiting lists lead to it taking “up to two months” to make a first appointment and speaks of “saturation” when referring to accommodation places for women at risk. Those who are in imminent danger can access a resource that only has 15 places in the entire capital and is designed for stays of a maximum of 72 hours until they can be referred, if they have decided, to a shelter. “There are cases in which it has taken a month or a month and a half because there was no room in the shelters or even sending the women to hotels,” she says.
The worker focuses on the fact that it is the victims themselves who, in the end, end up being affected and regrets that from her service “we cannot follow up on the women that we would like.” The 24-hour SAVG provides initial care; it is the gateway to the system from which women are usually referred to a center for a more long-term approach. “It can take a month for the drifts to happen because they have a waiting list and in that time you can’t even call them to see how they are. In that period of time, they are sometimes forced to return to their partners because they feel alone and lost. We are a team of 25 people for about 3,000 women a year,” she says.
Where do the funds go?
The workers recognize that, in general, the money allocated to the fight against sexist violence has increased in recent years and they believe that the State Pact against Gender Violence was a key stimulus, but they demand greater transparency about the destination of the funds. In this sense, they regret that the Ministry of Equality has not launched the Information and Evaluation System established in the agreement of the Sectoral Conference, which also allowed town councils and communities to allocate up to 40% of the funds to personnel expenses. “This is something that is not happening. A lot is spent on campaigns and what we say is that the money must reach the lives of women,” says Guisado.
On the other hand, they insist on the need for multi-year financing. That is, the funds are not only subject to one year, so that at the end they must be justified and start again from scratch, but that they can be extended, something that, according to the workers, the Ministry of Finance must make possible. “This ends up affecting the maintenance of services and causes instability or the projects cannot be given continuity,” adds the president of the Gender Now Impact Platform, who focuses on a common demand: that all the services of this type are under direct public management and are not outsourced to companies, as is the case in some places.
A lot is spent on campaigns and what we say is that the money from the State Pact must reach the lives of women
Paqui Guisado
— President of Gender Impact Platform Now
“We have seen that it does not provide more quality to the service, but it does give greater vulnerability to professionals. Regarding salary and working conditions, they are governed by a framework that is not that of public employment and there is no stability for a job like this, with such technical demands. We cannot change professionals or the location of the center every two years because we change the specifications and it is awarded to another company,” adds Guisado.
From Andalusia, Paqui Granados, director of the Municipal Women’s Center of the Maracena City Council, also points out that in many cases companies “do not ask for specialized training in gender violence and Human Rights”, which sometimes even generates criticism from the users themselves, for example, of the Family Meeting Points. The worker also denounces “the deficit of funds” that “many town councils” are experiencing due to “the delay in co-financing by the Andalusian Government. Asked about this, the Administration assures that “82% of the agreements have already been signed” and that resources “have increased by 12% since 2018.”
Greater specialization
Granados does celebrate that the community “is taking steps” towards multi-year financing “of the money that the autonomous community transfers to the municipal coffers for this purpose, but demands greater stability in the figures of psychologist and legal advisor in the centers that depend on the town councils, where many times they are not hired full-time. ”This causes professionals to be overwhelmed in many places,” agrees with the rest.
Also in these areas, Clara Jiménez Santos, a psychologist at a care point in the community of La Vera, located in the province of Cáceres, points to “the lack of personnel.” “Here in Extremadura what we see is a lot of instability and temporality and that ends up causing precariousness,” says the worker, who also names “the lack of training” of new hires and other specific issues that they usually see in the territory as the obstacles that They exist to access the centers derived from “the low offer of public transport” or the feeling of lack of protection that the professionals themselves have: “In many areas everyone knows you and that means that we sometimes even receive threats from the aggressors ”.
In this sense, Montserrat Vilà, director of the feminist association Hèlia, celebrates that in Catalonia, the modification of law 5/2008 has incorporated the so-called second-order violence, which is that which is exercised against people who support their own. victims. She also believes that in her community it has been important that there is a Department of Equality and Feminism in the Generalitat and “improvement” in transparency.
Vilà, also president of the Unitary Platform against Gender Violence, another of the entities that organized this Saturday’s meeting, points like the rest of the colleagues “to the saturation” of the services and demands “greater specialization” of the professionals and “the equalization of salaries and working conditions” of outsourced personnel with that of female officials. “In addition, care actions are needed for the workers and support in the follow-up of cases, since it is an essential service in which the professionals carry a strong emotional burden,” he points out.
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