Seven children killed. Seven children between the ages of 2 and 10 murdered in just three months, in 91 days, at the hands of their parents, the person who is supposed to protect them above everything and everyone. Since there have been records (2013) about this kind of murder, there had never been such a number of children’s lives skewed at the hands of their parent. The year with the most disasters was 2018, when eight children were killed in those twelve months. This year, in just three months, seven children have already been killed. And there have been 57 since 2013.
And yet, these murders are not on the country’s political and social agenda. Pending confirmation that the one in Prat (see the information on the left) is a new case of a father who has killed his children and a case of gender violence, the reality is that violence against minors continues against a certain social passivity.
This is indicated by experts consulted by this newspaper, including Ricardo Ibarra, director of the Platform of Children’s Organizations, who expressed his “total dismay” at the murders in 2024.
“It is clear that we have a problem of the first magnitude in this society both with gender violence and with violence against children, which is not always known, its forms are not taken into account and of which we are not aware of the impact it has on so many people’s lives. It is a problem that requires ambitious measures from public administrations to deploy all legal instruments and possible resources. Right now they are awaiting the implementation of the law on violence against children that has just been approved. It is urgent that resources be mobilized to try to avoid all possible forms of violence against children. We must also reflect as a society on the impact of violence, which is a reality in which many people live”.
For the forensic expert and gender violence expert, Miguel Lorente, the fact that the murder of children in the context of gender violence is not on the public agenda is explained by the fact that gender violence is not there either. “What is on the agenda are statistics and some specific measures. We have a fragmented view of gender-based violence and we have an insufficient response. And what needs to be understood is that when violence increases it is because society allows it. They are not isolated men, those who carry out violence outside the social context”.
And he adds: “What we should have learned is that, when last year there was an increase of 18.4% in the number of murders of women, we are already in a context of more violence, enhanced by rising denialism which, in addition, has already reached the institutions and has reduced resources (suppression of women’s institutes, councils for equality, helplines for victims…)”.
Marisa Sotelo, head of the Women’s Foundation, believes that justice and society continue not to apply the maxim that an abuser is not a good father and that doubts about this claim the lives of children. “It is necessary to identify the situation of minors exposed to gender-based violence as one of the cases with the highest risk of child violence and to request an appropriate institutional response”.
Although, he acknowledges, in the context of a denialist discourse, it is very difficult to focus. And he insists, “it is urgent to identify vicarious violence in contexts of gender violence as one of the most serious and at greatest risk against childhood”.
