Protest against the first sentence imposed on the members of La Manada for sexual abuse, in Seville in 2018. PACO PUENTES
At dawn or at two in the afternoon.
The same day it happened or years later.
This is how the future comprehensive care centers for women victims of sexual violence, known as 24-hour crisis centers, will operate morning, afternoon and evening every day of the year with psychological, legal and social care for victims and their families. .
The Ministry of Equality allocates 19.8 million euros to start the implementation of "at least" one center of this type in each province, plus another two in the autonomous cities of Ceuta and Melilla.
"In no case is it necessary to file a complaint to facilitate care and intervention," says Equality in the documentation on this project, which will be approved on Tuesday in the Council of Ministers, and to which EL PAÍS has had access.
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This first game will serve to start equipping the offices, which Equality expects to open, at the latest, in 2023. Each autonomy will receive a first amount of 300,000 euros per province - the amount per center calculated by the ministry is one million.
The rest of money up to 19.8 million, covered with European funds and included in the Spain Plan protects you against sexist violence, will be distributed according to the number of women over 16 years of age, the dispersion of the population or the insularity.
In this first entry, Equality transfers 30% of the total investment of the million euros planned per center, which must also be completed with funds from Europe, according to the forecast of the ministry.
The distribution proposal, which must be ratified at a sectoral conference in April between the ministry headed by Irene Montero and the autonomous communities, ranges between the maximum of 2.95 million for Andalusia and the 305,000 euros planned for Ceuta and Melilla, respectively .
The creation of this type of center is included in the so-called Istanbul Convention, the Council of Europe agreement on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence, approved in 2011 and ratified by Spain seven years ago, in 2014 It is this agreement that broadens the consideration of victims of sexist violence beyond that suffered by women who are abused by their partners or ex-partners.
It extends it to other forms also included among the profiles that these crisis centers will attend to.
They will be aimed at victims of sexual assaults, women subjected to forced marriages and genital mutilations, who have suffered sexual harassment, exhibitionism or sexual provocation, prostitution "of others", according to the documentation of Equality, as well as pimping, sexual exploitation, trafficking for of sexual exploitation, stalking or repeated harassment based on gender or sexual femicide.
Among the workers who will attend to them, specialized profiles are foreseen: psychologists and psychiatrists, lawyers, social science professionals with skills and specialized training in intervention or containment in crisis or emergency (social workers, social educators, pedagogues or other disciplines) and mediators cultural or translators.
The intention of Igualdad, which includes all profiles in female, is that those hired are mostly women, as is already the case in services such as the helpline for victims of sexist violence - recently also open to sexual assaults -, 016. Sources of Equality also point out that it is "very common" for victims to ask to be treated by other women and that in the ministry they always include in the specifications as a recommendation that they be hired from them.
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In its article 25, the Istanbul Convention urges the signatory nations - 34 countries have ratified it, although Turkey has just announced its departure - to take the necessary measures to create “emergency aid centers for victims of rape and sexual violence. , appropriate, easily accessible and in sufficient numbers, to carry out a medical and forensic examination, and to give them support related to trauma and advice ”.
Spain is far from having that "sufficient number".
According to an Amnesty International report in November, there are only two official facilities - promoted by the administrations - in all of Spain: one promoted by the Principality of Asturias and the other by the Madrid City Council.
Seven more communities (Andalusia, Aragón, the Balearic Islands, Cantabria, Castilla y León, the Valencian Community and Murcia), says Amnesty, offer assistance for victims of gender and sexual violence.
Castilla-La Mancha and the Basque Country include psychological care programs for victims of sexual assault and Catalonia has a specific unit for these cases.
For almost 30 years there have been non-governmental organizations that also serve women who have suffered these attacks.
Among them, the nine members of Famuvi, the Federation of Associations for Assistance to Victims of Sexual and Gender Violence.
A network "not nearly enough"
The Group of Experts in the Fight against Violence against Women and Gender Violence (Grevio, created by mandate of the Istanbul convention) pointed out in its first evaluation report of Spain, published in 2020, that the existing network is “marginal "And" not nearly enough. "
He stressed that "a large part of Spain is neglected, and rural areas in particular."
He urged the Spanish authorities "to take measures to establish a sufficient number of emergency aid centers for victims of sexual violence."
And also to develop "a protocol that comprehensively addresses this violence, so as to offer a comprehensive response to the needs of the victims," an aspect in which Equality indicates that it is working with the Ministry of Health.
It is this group, among other organizations and specialists, that points out that the complaint should not be a requirement: "A victim's access to the different support services should not depend on their willingness to file a complaint."
Crimes of sexual violence have a very low reporting rate.
13.7% of the female population aged 16 and over, 2,802,914 women residing in Spain, have suffered sexual violence throughout their lives, according to the 2019 Macro-Survey on Violence against Women. those who were sexually assaulted outside the scope of their partner denounced the assailant.
Among the reasons that they put forward, they stand out that they were minors, that it was of little importance, that they did not do it out of shame, because "they were other times" or for fear that they would not believe them, according to the aforementioned study.
El Grevio also advises against treating women who suffer violence by their partner or ex-partner and victims of sexual violence in the same services.
He points out that there is research that indicates that, when mixed, the first cases "are prioritized due to the immediate nature of the moment of crisis."
Adding them together "does not seem to respond to the needs of rape victims, who require immediate medical attention and support for their trauma, as well as timely forensic examinations for a future judicial process as documentary evidence of the victims when filing charges."
Inspired by the Anglo-Saxon 'rape crisis center' of the seventies
The origin of the crisis centers comes from the momentum of the feminist movement in the United States and other Anglo-Saxon countries in the second half of the 20th century.
So-called “awareness groups” were created, in which women met to share their experiences about the violence they suffered, in a space where they were not questioned.
The first crisis center was opened in Washington DC in 1972. London opened one in 1976. The name crisis center derives from the
Anglo-Saxon
rape crisis
centers.
There are other similar ones in Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Ireland, Portugal or Belgium, according to Equality.
The law on sexual freedom, which is in process and whose draft has recently been questioned by the General Council of the Judiciary, also provides for the creation of these centers.
The same regulations include a specific itinerary to address sexual violence in childhood, through children's homes, similar to the
Anglo-Saxon
children's house
or
Barnahus Escaninavo models
.