It is one of the most widespread falsehoods that has persisted over time, despite the fact that it has been refuted a thousand times by the authorities involved. This is the mantra that some representatives of Vox (including its leader, Santiago Abascal) repeat every time they can about the high number of false complaints filed by women accusing their partners or ex-partners of gender violence. But it is not true. It is true that there are some false complaints, but the percentage is “tiny”. This is indicated by the Public Prosecutor’s Office in the last report of 2022, which calculates that the percentage of false complaints out of the total is 0.01%.
And it’s not just a reality of that year. In the last twelve years, out of a total of 1.8 million complaints of male violence, there were only 153 convictions for falsehood. “The average between the years 2009 and 2021 is 0.0084%”, this report points out.
It calls attention to how this nonsense persists, while attempts are made to make invisible the reality that gender-based violence exists and, despite this, many victims suffer it in silence without filing any complaint and, therefore, without finding the protection they need. In fact, of the 28 women murdered since the beginning of the year, 22 had not reported their situation. Neither they nor anyone around them. This shows an under-reporting of cases of gender-based violence.
Another of the mantras that have been repeated lately is that there is no such thing as gender-based violence, that what there is is intra-family or domestic violence. But that’s not the case either. Gender-based violence is a reality endorsed by numerous reports and judgments of the Constitutional Court, the Supreme Court and the other courts, and also, and especially, the Observatory of Gender and Domestic Violence of the CGPJ, not to mention international bodies, which ensure that male violence is not comparable to domestic violence either in terms of motivations or dimensions. The percentage of gender-based violence murders out of total intimate partner deaths was 94.2% in 2022: fifty women murdered by their ex-partners in 2021 (latest detailed report available), a every seven days; six murders of men at the hands of their wives, one every two months. The last two weeks, one every other day.
As for the victims, the latest data collected by the INE leave no doubt. In 2022, 33,209 women were victims of gender-based violence, compared to 8,151 of domestic violence.
