Mass protests in Spain against femicide

(Patria) – After 19 women were killed by their partners during the summer alone, protests against femicide are being held in more than 250 Spanish cities on Friday.

The organizers of the protests, dominated by the purple color characteristic of the feminist movement, want to point out the apathy, indifference, and lack of adequate attention regarding femicide.

In the first 9 months of this year alone, 42 women lost their lives due to domestic violence, and 32 children were left without mothers. Since the Spanish government began recording such murders in 2003, 1,017 women have been killed by their former or current partners.

The protests are taking place three years after the group rape of a woman during the Pamplona festival, while the trial against seven men accused of raping a 14-year-old girl in Catalonia is still ongoing.

A representative of the Feminist Emergency organization, which organized the protests, says that we have left behind a 'summer full of murders, barbarism, rapes, assaults, pedophilia, and gang rapes' and adds that gender-based violence has reached its peak and must not be ignored: 'this is an emergency situation,' say Feminist Emergency.

The verdict for the group rape in Pamplona, which initially acquitted 5 men because they allegedly committed only 'sexual abuse,' shocked Spain and initiated protests, as well as a fierce debate about laws on sexual offenses.

Therefore, in June, the Supreme Court of Spain issued a new verdict, convicting all men from the rape group, increasing their prison sentence from 9 years to 15 years for each of them.

However, the Spanish right-wing party Vox is demanding the repeal of the domestic violence law, calling women fighting against violence 'psychopathic feminacists.' They went so far as to boycott a minute of silence in the Madrid City Council for the latest victim of domestic violence, Adaliz Villagra (31), who was fatally stabbed in front of her two children on Tuesday.