The law against will not be approved next Tuesday in the Council of Ministers, as anticipated by the Ministry of Equality: the Government has decided to postpone its approval to give room for negotiation between the different ministries, after agree on the text with all parties, according to sources familiar with the negotiation.
This Thursday, Sira Rego’s department announced that as a co-proponent ministry, given the refusal of Justice to modify issues that could imply risks for the protection of victims, as feminist associations warned. Youth and Children proposed modifications related to the classification of vicarious violence, the visitation regime, parental authority and the right to listen to children and adolescents. And it did so after the State Coordinator for the Eradication of Vicarious Violence and Institutional Gender Violence sent Justice and Equality, in which it warned that the legal text, as it was proposed, could leave victim mothers in a situation of legal insecurity.
This coordinator defended in her writing that the classification of vicarious violence cannot be done in “any way”, she expressed her “great concern about the proposed proposals” and asked that the law not be limited to superficial tweaks or to create new figures that contradict the concept of vicarious violence, as a neutral crime of vicarious violence without relating it to sexist violence.
In response, the position of Youth and Children was to defend that it is unacceptable that the current text continues to allow the aggressor to maintain contact with sons and daughters who are victims of vicarious or gender violence and to point out that the right to listen to minors is not guaranteed. Given Justice’s refusal to modify the aforementioned aspects, Youth and Children decided to withdraw from the project as a co-proponent. However, the Government wants to try to move forward with the text with consensus and that is why the negotiation period has been extended.
Equality sources assure that “everything necessary will be negotiated to produce a good text.” Last Wednesday, Redondo acknowledged that it is a “delicate text” and specified that an attempt would be made to reconcile the victims’ demands with a “correct legislative technique.”
Telephone 016 assists victims of sexist violence, their families and those around them 24 hours a day, every day of the year, in 53 different languages. The number is not registered on the telephone bill, but the call must be deleted from the device. You can also contact via email and by WhatsApp at the number 600 000 016. Minors can contact the ANAR Foundation telephone number 900 20 20 10. If it is an emergency situation, you can call 112 or the National Police (091) and the Civil Guard (062) telephone numbers. And if you cannot call, you can use the ALERTCOPS application, from which an alert signal is sent to the Police with geolocation.
