The last was three years old, and waited for the Magi when she was killed. It was called Ciara. His father, Ruben Dario, was killed by her and her mother, Monica Linde, on the 6th of January. 35 boys and girls have been killed by their parents or the partners of their mothers in the last seven years, when they began to be counted in the official statistics of gender-based violence. The Ombudsman, Francisco Fernández Marugán, claiming for them a specific system of comprehensive monitoring of the space that already exists for women. Calls for integrating the activities of the different administrations that serve them, from the police to the social services of the autonomous communities or municipalities. Also ask to review the custody or allow the registration of women and children in the places that they move to protect themselves even though they do not give a address for security reasons.
In march 2019, were included specific questions on the potential risk of the minor in the police protocols that are applied to women when they go to report, the system viogen. The Ministry of the Interior approved this change six months after that Itziar Prats lost their daughters, Nerea and Martina (six and two years old), he killed his father, Ricardo Carrascosa, in September of 2018. And five years after Spain signed in 2104 the Istanbul Convention, a european agreement on violence against women, which includes among its measures, the protection and support of their sons and daughters.
The letter from the Ombudsman in which he gives new recommendations to improve the fight against gender-based violence, whose law has just turned 15 years of force – is aimed precisely at Prats. Marugán writes: “Thanks to testimonials like yours today we are more conscietnes of the severity of the problem and the need to seek solutions that allow a better and greater protection of these children and girls who live in environments of violence”. Itziar Prats is leading a mobilization weaving butterflies that are spreading to raise awareness of the need for a change to stop the male violence that start from the education of very young children. You have come to the president of the Government, Pedro Sanchez, and various members of his cabinet. In the endowment session, I brought the deputy of United we Can, Victory Rosell.
The family of the girls, Prats and also the maternal grandparents, they claimed the liability of the Government for failing to protect them, in a document that point to the ministries of Justice and Interior, and that is the step prior to court. In parallel, came to the Ombudsman, who has reviewed the case with the Administrations.
A string of errors
The case of this mother, shows a string of errors that resulted in the murders of the girls. Itziar Prats reported the risk of their daughters after the threats that he received from the father: “I’m going to load what more do you want”, she had warned him. She went to the Women’s Center of Castellón, said in a police station, a duty court and in the Court for Violence number 1 of Castellón. A doctor who examined her reported that it could be a case of gender-based violence. The father committed suicide after killing them.
The lawyer Prats, Gabriel Rubio, considered that the recommendations of the Ombudsman “includes the failure of the system that we oppose from the beginning and that Itziar and her daughters were victims.” Remember that some of these measures should be in place for years. “It is worrying that it is the Defender who has to gently remind them to competent bodies. At least we are left with the consolation that the loss of the girls, Nerea and Martina serve for all administrations involved are aware of the obligation they have to comply with and enforce the international conventions to which Spain is a party”.
statutory Reports
Marugán also claims other measures that are already approved but not yet developed, such as the revision of the regime of custody and visitation. The State Pact against the Violence of Gender, a text barely developed since its approval in 2017, expected to suspend the visitation and shared custody to the abusers.
The Ombudsman requests that the meeting points of the family, which depend on the autonomous communities, to make mandatory reports of cases in which detect any situations of risk for minors. Calls for more police in the units of family and woman for that “in those first few moments of the complaint by the victim to feel heard and reduce effectively the length medioa dle processing time of the records”.
In the recommendations repairs in the double victimization of women, often forced to a long journey for offices and administrations, which the Ombudsman aims to prevent with intervention protocols comprehensive, and catalogues with all the resources at the disposal of the victims. “One of the main problems we face is the dispersion of the services and resources that that offer to victims and the lack of co-ordination”, he warns.
The fight against gender-based violence is one of the axes of the joint programme of Government PSOE (socialist party/ United we Can in a political scenario in which the third force in support, the far-right party Vox, calls for the repeal of the specific laws of gender-based violence and deny that it exists. Among the proposals of this Government agreement is the implementation of the outstanding measures of the covenant of the State and the development of a Comprehensive Plan of Compesanción, Repair and Recovery for women who suffer from this violence, which includes promoting the economic autonomy of victims.
