The Spanish government has called for a second emergency crisis committee meeting which includes domestic violence experts and will also be attended by the country’s equality, interior and justice ministries, on Friday (January 27). This comes in light of the recent murders of six women and one 8-year-old girl since the beginning of this year, said Spain’s Equality Minister, Irene Montero, on Monday.
According to a report by the Guardian, Spain’s government is also considering proposals which would allow authorities to inform victims of domestic violence if their partners have been convicted of violent offences against women in the past. Last month, a crisis committee emergency meeting was convened after the murder of 11 women.
“This month of January, six women and an 8-year-old girl have been murdered due to sexist violence…we (the equality ministry) convene the Crisis Committee this Friday at 10 am to analyse each case in detail, find out what has gone wrong, improve coordination and ALWAYS arrive on time,” said Montero, on Twitter.
The equality minister is referring to the alleged murder of a 45-year-old woman and her 8-year-old daughter in the Spanish province of Valladolid, on Monday, reported the Guardian. This was five days after a 38-year-old woman was allegedly killed in the Spanish province of Catalan. The meeting on Friday will also be attended by representatives from Spain’s self-governing regions.
In December, the government had also called on the Spanish courts and prosecutors to ramp up the use of electronic bracelets for former partners who had been subjected to restraining orders, in a bid to protect women, said the media report. “Since 2009, when these bracelets were brought in, no woman wearing one has been murdered,” said the country’s justice minister, Pilar Llop, last month.
The electronic bracelets system was introduced in the country over a decade ago to protect women against their aggressors where the police track both the victims of domestic violence as well as their assailant. Furthermore, as per reports, the authorities are promptly alerted in case of different scenarios like if the battery of the device runs out or the aggressor tries to remove the tag or they try to enter the victim’s safety perimeter.
The report also noted how the number of women murdered by their partners or former partners accounting for the recent incidents has reached nearly 1,200 in the last two decades when the government first began recording such incidents. Furthermore, 50 children have reportedly been killed in domestic violence attacks in the same time period.
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