The City Council has today organised a demonstration to show its despair at the latest cases of violence against women in Spain. Laura Menéndez reports…
Story by Journalist, Eugene Costello (3-minute read time)
The council joined the silent concentration, called by the Federación Española de Municipios y Provincias (FEMP, the Spanish Federation of Municipalities and Provinces). The event was organised to condemn the murder of Anna and Olivia (two girls, one aged six years and one just 14 months) whose bodies were found in Tenerife, together with another six women who have also lost their lives due to patriarchal systematic violence in the past month. Mayor Joan Ribó led the retinue which met at 12 in the door of Ayuntamiento de València, wishing to “fill the square with silence, a silence full of pain and disgust, and to spread this silence to many other squares”.
Other victims of violence against women were remembered, including 41 children murdered since 2013 and another 1,096 women murdered since 2003 in Spain. Mayor Ribó has publicly manifested his “profound sadness and indignation towards the rise in violence against women cases”.
“It is violence against women, despite the insistence of certain groups in not calling it such”
– Mayor Joan Ribó
Joan Ribó has publicly denounced the “sexist brutality and its worst consequences” and has added that “it should be fought with educational policies in schools, educating boys and girls, together with many other actions that need to be taking on the side, allowing survivors to continue their lives and ensuring the safety of women that suffer from this kind of violence.
“We cannot deny the problem; we ought to fight it with all our strength,” added Ribó.
Story by freelance journalist and writer, Eugene Costello, formerly based in east London and now living in Valencia, Spain. https://eugenecostello.co.uk/