"A real genocide is taking place all over the world"
The coronavirus pandemic has exposed not only systemic health problems around the world, but also gender-based violence: millions of women are trapped in their homes with domestic tyrants. This is to be expected has led to the fact that they were often subjected to violence and to die — this trend is especially clear in the countries of Latin America. In Mexico, for example, almost 400 women have died as a result of domestic violence since the beginning of the year alone. In Spain, the problem of so-called femicides (the murder of a woman as a result of gender-based violence) has been dealt with for many years by an organization Feminicidio.net: it makes such cases public and monitors the solution of the problem at the official level. At the request of " Lenta.<url> " journalist Daria Fedorinova spoke with the organization's lawyer and author of a book about victims of gender-based violence, Maria del Mar Daza Bonachela. She spoke about the specifics of such crimes as femicides, their victims and how to start fighting this problem in Russia.
Does a man always commit femicide?
Maria del Mar Daza Bonachela: this is a controversial issue. In most cases, this is true. However, imagine a situation where we are talking about human trafficking for the purpose of sexual exploitation, and the main one is a woman. If she kills her victim, it will also be a femicide. Another example is the deaths of girls and women associated with female circumcision. This is also a femicide, and most often such operations are performed by women, not men.
This could be a woman killing another woman for gender reasons. But still, it is usually considered only the murders of women committed by men
Can any murder of a woman be considered a femicide?
Femicide is the killing of a woman for being a woman. If a woman dies in a terrorist attack that is not directly directed against her, or during an armed robbery, it will certainly be murder, but not femicide. Although this definition is also a kind of simplification. Femicide is a very complex concept. It can be triggered by a lot of reasons. Here and the topics of motherhood, child care, control in public places — this is just a small list of reasons.
This is a very new topic even for the most developed countries. In the Spanish criminal code, the term "femicide" does not exist (it appears only in the legislation of certain regions). Gender-based homicide is only listed as a General aggravating circumstance in the murder clause. Moreover, this point appeared only in 2015, before that, murder for reasons of discrimination was considered an aggravating factor — a much more abstract concept.
What's wrong with General aggravating factors?
The law in this case should serve to better understand the problem, because it can't be solved by simply putting murderers away. Therefore, it is important to understand what types of femicide exist in order to better understand the situation.
It is not enough to know how many women have died at the hands of men — from the point of view of fighting against femicides, this is quite useless information
The fact is that femicide is the high point of much more widespread gender-based violence. And without a clear classification and statistics, it is impossible to understand the real problem.
Because of this, official statistics are lower than the ones collected Feminicidio.net?
At the official level, only cases of so-called femicide on the part of an intimate partner are included in the statistics, while all others remain out of it. Therefore, this is one of the directions of our struggle — to tell about all cases, regardless of whether they occurred within the family or not. For example, the high-profile case of Laura Luelmo, who was raped and killed by a neighbor, turned out to be outside of official statistics. This is certainly a femicide, but there is no law that would call a spade a spade. We also often encounter the murder of mothers. We need to point out these problems to society.
Full statistics on femicide are not yet available in any country in the world. In most countries where any data is collected, as in Spain, only cases of women being killed by their partners are counted. Perhaps the only organization in the world that collects more complete statistics is the Organization of American States. Despite the fact that violence is generally higher in Latin America, it is not only partner murders that are included in reports of femicides.
The number of femicides has increased due to the quarantine?
Over the past few years, there has been about one femicide by an intimate partner per week in Spain (about 50 per year). According to our data, three similar cases occurred in the six weeks since the start of the quarantine on March 14, which is basically within the average values.
Now the problem is that women are locked up with their aggressors around the clock. Of course, various measures are being taken to improve their situation. For example, going to the police to file a report is a valid reason to leave the house. I have already had a case where a woman reported domestic violence and her partner was taken from the house. But now the victims really have much less room to maneuver.
But quarantine is not the most dangerous time for a woman. She is in real danger when she finally decides to break up with a relationship that already had violence, psychological or physical
In this situation, her partner understands that there is nothing to fix, he finally lost control of his victim. And he can decide to take action. Until the decision to leave is made and announced, the situation is more or less under control, and the aggressor is unlikely to carry out its threats.
Who is at risk?
Just those women who voice their final decision to break up a relationship. From a procedural point of view, among those who have already turned to the authorities for help, it is most difficult for foreigners. This is indicated by a very high percentage of applications withdrawn by immigrants throughout the country. This means that they are not treated very well by the authorities.
Plus, culture shock plays an important role here. Often people who come from countries with strict Patriarchal laws find it difficult to integrate into a more free system. Women see an alternative, want to change their lives, but face the Patriarchal views of their partner.
When I was working at a center for victims of violence, I had a client from Nigeria. Her husband once said that she must have felt white. To which she replied that she felt like a person. Here's the story.
Перевела: Ушурова Ясмина www.incatalog.kz
Does a man always commit femicide?
Maria del Mar Daza Bonachela: this is a controversial issue. In most cases, this is true. However, imagine a situation where we are talking about human trafficking for the purpose of sexual exploitation, and the main one is a woman. If she kills her victim, it will also be a femicide. Another example is the deaths of girls and women associated with female circumcision. This is also a femicide, and most often such operations are performed by women, not men.
This could be a woman killing another woman for gender reasons. But still, it is usually considered only the murders of women committed by men
Can any murder of a woman be considered a femicide?
Femicide is the killing of a woman for being a woman. If a woman dies in a terrorist attack that is not directly directed against her, or during an armed robbery, it will certainly be murder, but not femicide. Although this definition is also a kind of simplification. Femicide is a very complex concept. It can be triggered by a lot of reasons. Here and the topics of motherhood, child care, control in public places — this is just a small list of reasons.
This is a very new topic even for the most developed countries. In the Spanish criminal code, the term "femicide" does not exist (it appears only in the legislation of certain regions). Gender-based homicide is only listed as a General aggravating circumstance in the murder clause. Moreover, this point appeared only in 2015, before that, murder for reasons of discrimination was considered an aggravating factor — a much more abstract concept.
What's wrong with General aggravating factors?
The law in this case should serve to better understand the problem, because it can't be solved by simply putting murderers away. Therefore, it is important to understand what types of femicide exist in order to better understand the situation.
It is not enough to know how many women have died at the hands of men — from the point of view of fighting against femicides, this is quite useless information
The fact is that femicide is the high point of much more widespread gender-based violence. And without a clear classification and statistics, it is impossible to understand the real problem.
Because of this, official statistics are lower than the ones collected Feminicidio.net?
At the official level, only cases of so-called femicide on the part of an intimate partner are included in the statistics, while all others remain out of it. Therefore, this is one of the directions of our struggle — to tell about all cases, regardless of whether they occurred within the family or not. For example, the high-profile case of Laura Luelmo, who was raped and killed by a neighbor, turned out to be outside of official statistics. This is certainly a femicide, but there is no law that would call a spade a spade. We also often encounter the murder of mothers. We need to point out these problems to society.
Full statistics on femicide are not yet available in any country in the world. In most countries where any data is collected, as in Spain, only cases of women being killed by their partners are counted. Perhaps the only organization in the world that collects more complete statistics is the Organization of American States. Despite the fact that violence is generally higher in Latin America, it is not only partner murders that are included in reports of femicides.
The number of femicides has increased due to the quarantine?
Over the past few years, there has been about one femicide by an intimate partner per week in Spain (about 50 per year). According to our data, three similar cases occurred in the six weeks since the start of the quarantine on March 14, which is basically within the average values.
Now the problem is that women are locked up with their aggressors around the clock. Of course, various measures are being taken to improve their situation. For example, going to the police to file a report is a valid reason to leave the house. I have already had a case where a woman reported domestic violence and her partner was taken from the house. But now the victims really have much less room to maneuver.
But quarantine is not the most dangerous time for a woman. She is in real danger when she finally decides to break up with a relationship that already had violence, psychological or physical
In this situation, her partner understands that there is nothing to fix, he finally lost control of his victim. And he can decide to take action. Until the decision to leave is made and announced, the situation is more or less under control, and the aggressor is unlikely to carry out its threats.
Who is at risk?
Just those women who voice their final decision to break up a relationship. From a procedural point of view, among those who have already turned to the authorities for help, it is most difficult for foreigners. This is indicated by a very high percentage of applications withdrawn by immigrants throughout the country. This means that they are not treated very well by the authorities.
Plus, culture shock plays an important role here. Often people who come from countries with strict Patriarchal laws find it difficult to integrate into a more free system. Women see an alternative, want to change their lives, but face the Patriarchal views of their partner.
When I was working at a center for victims of violence, I had a client from Nigeria. Her husband once said that she must have felt white. To which she replied that she felt like a person. Here's the story.
Перевела: Ушурова Ясмина www.incatalog.kz