Cristina Garcia Married |
Salamanca (EFE).- Aged, dispersed environments, where everyone knows each other, such as those in rural Spain, complicate the prevention of gender violence, as experts who work in this field explained this Wednesday at the University of Salamanca .
“They are environments where nobody wants to say anything to us, especially when the abuse is of a psychological nature. But then a murder occurs and the media arrive and then everyone talks, everyone knew what was happening,” said Pedro Merino Castro, lieutenant colonel of the Civil Guard of Salamanca.
At a time when sexist violence is at the center of the electoral debate, the University of Salamanca (USAL) has hosted its first specific table to address the particularities of this type of violence in the rural world, within the framework of a congress on “Institutionalization of the gender perspective in rural areas”.
Living in a town makes it difficult for a woman to report the violence she suffers at home, both because they are environments where everyone knows each other and because of the difficulties in getting around to the courts and help centers.
This is how Jésica Joaquín Rodríguez, a psychologist from the Federation of Progressive Women who works with women in rural areas, explained it. “Some have a bus a day or none at all, they cannot get close to a resource,” she pointed out.
As it is a population group where older women predominate, the psychologist identifies another key problem: “They do not recognize violence, they do not know that what they are experiencing is a type of violence.”
What have I done for that woman to stop suffering?
Lieutenant Colonel Merino has insisted during his speeches that combating sexist violence “is not the exclusive responsibility of the administrations”, but that it is the responsibility of all citizens.
“Each of us must ask ourselves: what have I done to make that woman stop suffering? It is also an individual responsibility of each one ”, she affirmed, after explaining that there are those who recognize that she only knew what was happening once the worst had happened.
The integration of all police forces in the gender violence protocol is essential, especially because “there are agents who live in the same municipality as the victim and the victim may feel more confident,” said Raquel San Felipe, head of the unit against gender violence in the Government Sub-delegation in Salamanca.
Difficulties with restraining orders
Merino has stressed the difficulty of giving protection to a rural woman with a restraining order. “There are circumstantial movements, vacations, a spread of the population in Salamanca and other provinces, and we cannot have a Civil Guard with each of the victims,” she admitted.
It also complicates the work of raising awareness and psychological care in towns where there is no internet access, coverage does not work or the victims are older women who only use the landline phone, Rodríguez has indicated.
Merino closed his speech with an observation that he sees not only in the rural world: “We see schemes that were outdated and are being replicated in new generations. We see partner control behaviors in non-adult ages.”
And he concluded: “We are losing respect for the person next to us, the ball is in the administrations but also in each of the homes in Spain.”