Many, many women are afraid and they have no shortage of reasons. I am not talking about abusers, rapes or beatings, but about the Judiciary. But not alone. Also from all the institutional mechanisms that threaten us, from the media and violence on the networks. With Juana Rivas they made it clear to us: Be careful with protecting your children from the abuser, because the one who will end up in jail will be you. It is one of the most obvious examples of training, taming and exemplary submission that I remember.
I feel like something has changed. At last. I don’t know if we are ready for “fear to change sides”, but yes I can say that I am no longer afraid. Because we are many, many. Because we already know what they do to us and can do to us. Because we will not be alone. We know that the Judiciary does not work in the case of complaints of sexist violence, and from there we come out stung and punished. Now we can say it without them coming at us with the raca-raca of “complaint.” If we don’t report it, we know why.
We also know that we are no longer going to remain silent. So we have no choice but to act, and of course we must, as a society, ask ourselves why institutional channels do not serve us. The problem is not ours, the women’s, it is those channels. The mother who reports that the father rapes the child is put in jail. The mother who reports that the father beats her to death has custody taken away. The raped woman is sent home due to lack of evidence. Restraining orders are a bad joke. Yesterday a woman wrote to me who received regular beatings. The lawyer told him to desist from filing a complaint because she had no recorded evidence, and instead he could have some video of her going crazy.
At the time I would have hidden Juana Rivas and her children in my house, and that’s how I sent it to her. Now I don’t mind saying it. Or I would have paid for a ticket to any country far enough away. And? And you don’t? Well, for not doing so, for complying with court orders, her youngest son has been living with the abuser for seven years, separated from his mother and brother, who has already warned of the atrocious life that his father, Arcuri, gave them. Would you leave your daughter with a father who rapes her? Would you do it because a judge ordered it? Stand up and answer from the heart.
I receive threats daily, beyond those that promise me beatings and the like, “We’re going to kick your mouth shut.” They tell me “Your hair is going to fall out with what you do.” “We’ll see each other in court.” “You’re going to shit yourself with the complaint we’re going to file against you.” “I represent So-and-So, and you don’t know who you’re messing with.” A long time ago, with each of these bravado my stomach would clench and I would spend days of anguish and anxiety. Not anymore. Now they slip me. I’m simply wondering what could happen. Let them report me? May they condemn me? Frankly, that doesn’t cause me much trouble.
One day a group of women appears recounting episodes of sexual violence. They all refer to the same man, let’s say a journalist. They all tell how they suffered attacks from the guy. Not only that, but by paying attention to them, a clear pattern of action can be extracted. None gives the name. Another day another group of women appears and refers to a teacher. Shortly after, others refer to a writer. The names do not appear in these cases either. The curious thing is that, even without saying the name of the aggressor or their own, the women are still atrociously afraid. They send their message, they delete it, they send it again, they talk to each other… and even together they cannot shake off a terror that keeps them in suspense from then on, prevents them from sleeping and leading a normal life.
What are these women afraid of? Certainly not to the journalist, the writer or the professor going personally to look for them. All of them have a vague fear that the system will turn against them. As? Let their name be known, let the aggressor report them, let it affect them economically and professionally, among other things. They are afraid and they are absolutely right. The name of the victim of the Sanfermines herd was leaked and they turned her life into hell, as she said, “worse than what happened in the portal.” Nevenka Fernández has never been able to return to Ponferrada, where her attacker’s entourage lives peacefully. In the case of the Arandina pack, the people took to the streets to support the attackers of the raped minor. Elisa Mouliaa, the only complainant (for now) of Íñigo Errejón, has since lived a nightmare that does not end, with threats, harassment and digital violence.
And now we return to Juana Rivas. Rivas is a detailed, savage and painful example of the violence that women suffer from institutions. Not only from the Judiciary, that too, but from all institutional areas. Do we really have to wait until a child is of age to pay attention to what matters? This comes from the strange idea that we mothers train our children to act against their own parents, something without meaning or head, something that has simply been invented so that we keep our mouths shut and perpetuate a violence that is already overwhelming, a clamor.
The subjugation, taming, intimidation and threat towards mothers who dare to defend their children against their abusers, towards women who point out their rapists, has been fierce and thorough on the part of the Judiciary, yes, but also of the media and political institutions, which have allowed this to happen. Furthermore, it has paid off. Women are afraid to report. They are afraid that this process will turn against us, even if the aggressor is convicted. They are afraid of judicial punishment, media punishment and social punishment. Any woman who decides to take the step of denouncing her attacker knows that she is entering a kind of roulette where the sentence, whatever it may be, may fall to her. But she also knows that, even without a conviction, she loses.
As I write this, Juana Rivas’ youngest son is, as has happened every day for more than 7 years, next to a convicted aggressor whose eldest son considers dangerous to the point of fearing for his brother’s life. And day by day, hour by hour, I receive hundreds of testimonies from victims who do not dare to give the name of their attacker or their own. The response to all this is a thick silence that begins to rise in temperature. A silence, and the threat of attacking them, against us. To me, frankly, these intimidations slip my mind at this point. I’m afraid I’m not the only one anymore.
#intimidations #slip
