Another murder of a woman at the hands of her partner this weekend. The two-year-old girl witnessed the deadly attack with a knife. Another case of violence that, no matter how much some try to relativize it, it does not stop increasing. There are already 22 since the beginning of the year, while 23 children have been orphaned. Since 2003, a total of 1,206. Data that are startling because of the loss of young lives (the majority between 30 and 50 years old), but which are even more so when you look at the statistics relating to the number of women who have special protection from the police because of the risk that running back to be injured or even killed.
According to the latest data from VioGèn, corresponding to May 31, 12,784 women are considered “cases of special relevance”, that is, the State security forces, after evaluating them, “detect a special combination of ‘indicators that significantly increase the likelihood that the aggressor will use very serious or lethal violence on the victim’, according to the VioGèn report. This situation occurs in cases that qualify as medium, high or extreme risk.
At this risk there are 281 women who have not even turned 18. The majority (around 5,600) are between 31 and 45.
The drama is that the number keeps growing. From January to May, the number of cases of special relevance, those in which the woman’s life is in danger, continues to increase, a thousand more in these five months, which indicates more aggression on the part of the reported abusers.
Of these almost 13,000 women, 1,226 have a very high risk; victims who live with a real fear of meeting their aggressor, fear of losing their life or that they will hurt their children or loved ones.
There are currently 77,666 women in the VioGèn system who are monitored by the State security forces, of whom 38,986 have children in their care. Almost 9,000 children are considered “cases of special relevance” due to the abusive environment in which they live. The risk of something happening to them is very high.
The measure that has been shown to be most effective against abusers once they have been reported and the corresponding restraining order has been decreed are telematic bracelets. No victim wearing it (the abuser also wears one) has been killed. However, few women wear it.
According to the latest data available (from April), 3,600 women live with a telematic bracelet that geolocates their abuser so that, if the abuser skips the restraining order, they receive a warning and can get out of danger while the police arrive. They are 30% more than a year ago.
In April alone, 248 telematic monitoring devices were installed, 29.2% more than a year earlier, according to the latest data from the Monthly Statistical Bulletin of the Central Government’s Delegation against Gender-Based Violence corresponding to the month of April 2023.
The number of telematic bracelets installed to monitor the removal of the aggressor due to gender violence since 2009 is 13,995. They are few if we take into account the large number of women who need to be protected, but significantly higher than five years ago, when there were barely a thousand.
It has multiplied its use 3.5 times, after years in which the devices presented dozens of technical problems. The main problem lies in the fact that the devices work with GPS, and in places without coverage, the operation of the telematic bracelet may fail. In addition to rural areas, it can happen in garages, a place where an assault could be committed. The new armbands have supposedly fixed these issues.
In addition, these devices, which require a court order, were not usually implanted in victims of gender violence, as reported by the Association of Women Judges of Spain (AMJE). In January, the president of the Observatory of Domestic Violence and Gender of the General Council of the Judiciary (CGPJ), Ángeles Carmona, called on Congress to continue promoting telematic control devices, so that there is more protection for victims of gender-based violence, and also impose consequences on perpetrators who break women’s restraining orders.
