A Civil Guard agent, from behind, next to an official vehicle. GUARDIA CIVIL (CIVIL GUARD)
This Monday morning, a 38-year-old man appeared at the Tarancón Civil Guard barracks, in Cuenca, to confess that he had just murdered his wife, Ouardia, with a knife.
He had done it in front of the three children they had had together, three under five, four and two years old.
She was 43 and had denounced him for mistreatment in 2019. That complaint triggered a restraining order that was active until last April 1, when after a trial a sentence was passed: "The Criminal Courts of Cuenca issued an acquittal ”, explains Blanca Fernández, the Minister of Equality and spokesperson for the Castilian-Manchego Government, on the phone.
Thus, after that opinion, the protection measure declined.
Lourdes Luna, the delegate for Equality in Cuenca, knew Ouardia and everything she had gone through in recent years: “They had been in Tarancón since 2009, they came directly from Morocco and the three children were born there.
There were no problems from the beginning, it was with the passage of time.
When she steeled herself and denounced, the measures were imposed and he left Tarancón.
She had been quiet for a few years, after having had a rather complicated life because he came and went.
"Every time he comes he makes me a son," she said.
Luna remembers her as someone who "tried to be as autonomous and independent as possible."
She was a regular user of the Women's Center: "Not only because of sexist violence, but because she was always aware of any job offer or anything that she could come up with."
Ouardia has no family in Tarancón, "but he does have a couple of brothers," says the delegate, "although there was not a very close relationship."
Thus, the three minors have spent this Monday morning with Social Services personnel and "are at this time in a City Hall resource," reports Luna.
Now, they will be coordinated so that they remain under the tutelage of the Community Board.
In Castilla-La Mancha, as in three other autonomies, since 2017 there has been specific aid for orphans of sexist violence;
economic support prior to the orphan's pensions activated by the central government.
"We continue to maintain them because we understand that all resources are few when you are left without a mother and in some way a father as well," recalls Blanca Fernández, the spokeswoman for Equality of autonomy.
In this case, that father, the alleged murderer, was immediately arrested when he confessed to the crime.
Later, the Civil Guard moved several patrols to the house that the couple shared;
and there they found the body of Ouardia, a worker in a City Council employment plan, in gardening.
"She had stab wounds on her body," confirms the Armed Institute.
After cordoning off the area, the judicial authority was notified and few other details are known so far.
The Government delegate in Castilla-La Mancha, Francisco Tierraseca, confirmed the arrest and condemned "a new crime, carried out on a woman for being a woman".
The president of the autonomy, Emiliano García-Page, alluded in an act this morning to the "impotence" in the face of new murders despite the fact that "much progress and improvement" has been made in the information and care for women victims of sexist violence : "We must continue to fight it as Spanish society is doing, without fissures, there are no ambiguities."
Fernández explained that the Board will appear as a "popular accusation" and recalled that Ouardia is the fourth woman murdered by sexist violence so far this year in the region: "In painful conditions, because it was committed in front of their children and also because it was have occurred after an acquittal sentence”.
He says that working every day on education and making this violence visible is “essential”.
Luna also refers to it: “Raise awareness and educate, sexist violence exists and sometimes I wonder how to anticipate it when it happens as it has in this case.
He always wonders what has gone wrong, but how can such a murder be predicted if there are no indications from the institutions”.
For this reason, Luna deepens, “we must say a thousand times that when we talk about denouncing women, neither women nor the environment should be afraid, that it is not necessary to file a formal complaint with the Police or the Guard. Civil, that only by manifesting what is happening before the Social Services or the Women's Institute or any other resource, we can start that formal process.
"Let no one shut up," she asks.
Since official data was collected in 2003, 1,138 women have been murdered.
When the Government Delegation against Gender Violence confirms this latest murder, Ouardia will be the 13th victim of 2022, the 1,139th since 2003.
The 016 telephone number assists victims of gender violence 24 hours a day, every day of the year.
The number is not recorded on the phone bill, but the call must be deleted from the device.