The next leader of the PP, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, has needed only a week as the sole candidate for the presidency of the party to show his common points with Vox. Despite the fact that he began his journey to the leadership of the formation with a “it is better to lose the Government than win it through populism”, in just seven days he has seen as a spectator how the president of Castilla y León, Alfonso Fernández Mañueco, agreed his Government with the ultra party and he himself has made his own the language in which Santiago Abascal’s party refers to sexist violence and its derivative with children, vicarious violence.
This Thursday, the president of the Xunta de Galicia has assured that sexist and intra-family violence are “two types of violence that exist”. According to him, these are two types of violence that are “perfectly compatible” and he has launched an example to explain his thesis: “If a father kills a son or a daughter, it is not sexist violence, it is intrafamilial; and if a man kills his partner by abusing his strength, it is sexist violence. I understand that we are talking about two different and real things that exist.”
He has also referred to a vicarious crime in Galicia, without specifying which case he was referring to, in which “a father, who He had problems with his partner He ended up murdering his two sons. “That is not sexist violence, it is domestic violence“, he has sentenced. He has maintained that when he studied Law – four decades ago – parricide was already typified and “then there was no talk of sexist or intra-family violence”.
Although Núñez Feijóo wanted to avoid “riding more [líos] necessary”, has fueled with his words a controversy in which members of the Government have not hesitated to enter. The Secretary of State for Equality, Ángela Rodríguez, has criticized Feijóo’s statements, which he considers worrying and has described as “indecent ” use them “for electoral reasons.” “If a father kills his children to harm the mother, it is sexist violence,” he has expressed. “To deny it is to deny mothers the only thing that repairs that hell: the truth. It is worrying to raise it, but that Alberto Núñez Feijóo says it for electoral reasons, it is indecent & rdquor ;, he has asserted.
Government concern
The Minister of Justice, Pilar Llop, has also reacted to Feijóo’s words and has invited him to make a “serious reflection” on where it is leading its policy on the protection of women and has shown its concern about the rapprochement of Vox and PP in matters of sexist violence, since, it has recalled, the PP voted in favor of the Law against Gender Violence , signed the State Agreement on this matter and also ratified the Istanbul Convention.
The Minister of Justice has defended that agreeing with Vox or “letting oneself be carried away by the wave of the extreme right” puts the protection of their rights at risk, according to Efe. “It is irresponsible that, at this point, they try to mix all the violence”, Llop pointed out. Likewise, it has shown its concern about this type of discourse, which can lead to confusion and, ultimately, not to develop public policies aimed precisely at the protection of victims of gender-based violence – that exercised by the domination of men on women – and the prosecution of crime.
These statements by Feijóo come a day after one of his party colleagues, the Andalusian Minister of Health and Families, Jesus Aguirrewould say that the concept of “domestic violence” may be preferable to “gender violence”. “Gender violence is that of men against women, while domestic violence also includes that directed against children or the elderly. It may be more representative of what happens in our society and, in that sense, I do not see a problem to broaden the concept,” he said. This Thursday, Aguirre met the criticism received, assuring that his commitment to gender violence is “resounding” because it is “a scourge” against which we must fight “together” to eradicate it.
The PP, which has historically positioned itself against gender-based violence, has begun to talk about domestic violence after Vox entered the Government of Castilla y León. In the government agreement of both formations, the pact to promote a law against domestic violence and the commitment to update the “current regulations” on the protection of victims: “Minors, elderly, women, people with disabilities or vulnerable people, and with special emphasis on rural areas, guaranteeing equality”.
The far right party systematically denies that there is specific violence against women and it is repeatedly committed to a domestic violence law that equally punishes all kinds of abuse that occurs within the family.
vicarious murders
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In his defense of Jesús Aguirre, Feijóo does not seem to remember that in Galicia a modification of the law for the prevention and comprehensive treatment of sexist violence entered into force in September last year, which contemplates the inclusion of vicarious violence, “understood as the homicide, assassination or any other form of violence exercised on the daughters or sons of the woman”, among other issues.
Since January 1 of this year, the Government Delegation against Gender Violence counted as femicides the fatal victims of all sexist violence, that is, the murders of women due to sexual violence, sexual exploitation and in the family sphere, in addition to the sexist murders perpetrated in the sphere of the partner or ex-partner. Furthermore, under Spanish law minors are recognized as victims of gender violence. Since 2013, 46 minors have been murdered by their parents or by the partners or ex-partners of their mothers.