2023 is being a disastrous year for gender violence. Especially June, August and so far in September (with 24 fatalities), the last a woman allegedly murdered at the hands of her partner this Sunday in an apartment in the center of Tarragona. The Mossos d'Esquadra arrested her partner yesterday afternoon, a 43-year-old man of Spanish nationality, after the autopsy confirmed the violent death of the victim. The alleged murderer called 112 after suffocating her partner and pretended that he had found her dead when he got home, according to El Caso yesterday.
These crimes have risen to numbers not seen in the last decade (except 2019). So far this year (from January 1 to September 18) 48 women have been murdered at the hands of their partners or ex-partners. During all of last year there were 49. Comparing periods, from January 1 to September 11, 2023, 14 more women have been murdered than in the same period in 2022.
This was stated yesterday by the Government's delegate against Gender Violence, Victoria Rosell, who considers that the brutal increase is the "reaction of men to the freedom of women" and due to the "ability to imitate and accept very dangerous speeches." for women, denialist discourses of gender violence.”
Rosell admits this increase in murders, after confirming the murder of a woman in Cieza (Murcia) as sexist violence. She was 35 years old and had a younger daughter. With her there are 46 children and adolescents who have been orphaned. The woman had a restraining order from the alleged murderer and she had reported mistreatment on two occasions.
So far, eight women have been murdered by gender violence in September, one more than in August. For this reason, Rosell has announced that he will convene the Crisis Committee in October where they will study what went wrong, especially in the case of Cieza.
To these data we must add the 13 women who were murdered in femicides outside the sphere of the partner or ex-partner in Spain in the first half of 2023. All of the alleged feminicides were known to the victim, 61.5% at home. The home became her grave.
The Government delegate against Gender Violence indicated that it represents a decrease of 40.9% between January and June 2023. In the same semester of the previous year, 22 women were murdered. The level of under-reporting of violence against women is confirmed once again: only in one case was there a report, 7.7%.
