The crude statistics speak for themselves. On average, in Spain one woman every week dies at the hands of her husband, partner, or ex-partner. In terms of some kind of macabre league table, this puts Spain somewhere in the middle ranks of all European countries, but rather below the progressive, forward-looking image Spain would of course rather project.
Some of the painfully true stories about domestic violence in Spain are Medieval in their brutality. Take the case of Ana Orantes, a 60-year-old woman who appeared on a television show in 1997 to describe decades of brutal beatings at the hands of her husband. She had been unable to get a restraining order despite dozens of complaints to the police.
Several days after the show was aired, Orantes was dead. Her husband had beaten her badly, one last time. Then he doused her with gasoline and lit a match.
In 2003, a judge in Barcelona was under investigation for ignoring 13 complaints from Ana Maria Fabregas before she was hammered to death by her husband. It remains unclear just what the investigation concluded about the judge, but it was clearly too late for Sra. Fabregas.
Even more recently, in May of 2004, another woman was burned to death in her home and this time along with her two children. She, too, had repeatedly asked for protection and was terrified of being left on her own with the children in her home because of threats received from her violent ex-partner. In this case, the ex-partner accused of murdering his former wife and two children, had a court order to stay away from his family and from his former home.
The second story is, if possible, still more alarming because it suggests that even a court order is shown scant regard by the determinedly violent partner. In 2003, the Spanish parliament had passed legislation - the Order for the Protection of Victims of Domestic Violence - giving battered women the option of getting a fast-track restraining order on a violent partner within a maximum of 72 hours.
In the first few months of the law coming into force, some 1,390 women had sought protection under it, with the authorities in Madrid alone reporting that about 20 women a day were applying for such an order.
Clearly, however, restraining orders are only as good as the effectiveness with which such orders are enforced. And many women’s groups and organisations believe that enforcement leaves a lot to be desired; with the enactment of legislation so far being little more than window-dressing from a government that had pledged to deal with the steadily rising tide of domestic violence. When he came to power early in 2004, the Prime Minister, Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, branded Spain’s domestic violence record as the country’s “worst shame” and an “unacceptable evil”.
It has to be said, too, that Zapatero’s socialist government is the first to recognise that the answer cannot lie in legislation alone. The “new”, democratic Spain is only 25 years old. It continues still to struggle to throw off the chains of Franco’s 40-year long Medieval-style dictatorship, under which domestic violence was merely a taboo rather than a crime, an era throughout which divorce was illegal.
The challenge for Spanish society, therefore, appears to be less a question of more legislation and instead a question of social and attitudinal change. The Minister for Work and Social Affairs, Jesus Caldera, for example has said that Spanish society needs to change its general attitudes towards women, which should be impressed upon school children through the study of “ethics and equality”. Caldera has challenged the way women are portrayed in Spanish adverts, and has announced the government’s intention to break women’s “chains of dependence” on their partners by improving their employment possibilities and providing accommodation alternatives.
Changes of even the most ingrained and culturally deep-rooted attitudes are possible, of course, but they are unlikely to happen overnight. Change also struggles against the present incarnations of the old order - and some new ones too.
The Catholic Church, for example, continues to portray itself as a model of reaction. In recent years, Roman Catholic bishops have caused an outcry with a report suggesting that sexual liberation since the 1960s has led to more men beating their wives.
In today’s Spain, what’s more, the Roman Catholic bishops find themselves somewhat bizarre bedfellows of outspoken Islamic clerics. The Imam of the southern Spanish town of Fuengirola, Mohamad Kamal Mustafa, for example, was recently taken to court for infringing Article 510.1 of the Spanish Penal Code. The lawyers, on behalf of a number of women’s associations, had accused him of gender discrimination: In his book Women in Islam (which was published in 1997), the imam defended a husband’s right to beat his wife and gave suggestions on how to beat her so as not to leave any marks.
During his trial, the Imam smiled as he talked about how “the virtuous women are obedient and submissive” and that in cases of disobedience, men are allowed to beat their wives or drive them away from the marital bed-”but as soon as they obey the man, he should not look for more dispute.” The Imam was convicted and sentenced to 15 months in prison. He will not, however, serve the sentence, because under Spanish law, individuals without previous convictions have their first sentence suspended if it is less than two years.
While there is a growing consciousness of the problem of domestic violence in Spain there also remain severely reactionary forces seemingly bent on dragging the country back to its darker ages. In the process, one woman a week continues to meet her death at the hands of her partner or ex-partner.
