As part of the International efforts to eradicate violence against women, we – women and men from and who is living in Cádiz, Spain with the support of the Master in Gender, Citizenship and Identity (Universidad de Cádiz)– realized a  Manifestation by the Asamblea Feminista de Cádiz. A lot of people went to the streets of this historical city to scream the world to stop violence against women and girls. I was there as a member of Safe World for Women NGO and as a Brazilian Delegate from Man Up with my colleagues from the Master to put my voice, my body and my soul to my brothers and sisters’ voices, bodies and souls to ask “No More Violence Against Women!”

This year, in Andalucia,  17 women died because of violence against women. The Andaluzian political leaders were being together in this 25^th November to raise awareness about such big problem.  So, all Andalucia had events to save the date and give visibility to a problem that did not decrease in the world that did not disappear… they believed that the date was perfect to educate about the issue and to inform that only by education, denounces and prevention  we could eliminate it. It was manifestations in all Andalucia, like: Huelva, Almería, Granada, and others.

The protective orders to help women who suffered violence in Andalucia have increased in 2010:  3.455 which means 1.000 more than in the last year.  But we have to keep in mind that a lot of women take back their complaints for several reasons: since regrets until be forced to do that.

In Cádiz we get off to the streets claiming no more!

In January, Spain “launched a campaign for a Europe-wide system of restraint orders aimed at curbing violence against women, calling for crime statistics to be reconfigured to highlight gender violence and for EU legislation offering protection to battered women across national borders”.  Anyway the problem was that there would be a lot of bureaucratic troubles because the size of Europe and it different administrations. “But while officials called for a new system of collating and comparing statistics on violence against women across the EU, Rubalcaba urged much greater police co-ordination on the issue and complained that European police, justice, and home affairs officials never discussed the problem of sexual violence.”

The act of this 25^th November could put together side by side women and men singing, asking and most important making people think about it, at least for a second.  We were a huge group with young and old women, young and old men with only one desire and only one heart, with the conscientious that by mobilization we could try to safe some women’s lives. 

Rubalcaba argues that the sexual violence in Europe "It's a human problem we share whether we live in the south or the north," he said. "I don't think being a man reduces your sensitivity to this problem." Some officials said that this action would only helped just the small minority of victims in Europe, but according to Cristina Gallash (a Spanish EU presidency spokeswoman) "Even if only one victim is protected, it's worth it, It's the minority that deserves protection."

As we were walking to the streets sharing the same energy and very motivated we could see people looking at us, some with curiosity and others feeling the same passion that us were feeling at that time, and so we all were accomplices to change the world. Every eye was full of hope, every eye was full of sadness, and every eye was full of love.

Every single step, every single voice, every single word was taking us to dream with a world in which we all could be respected as human beings and not by our sex or gender. By these photos we can see young people side by side with old people into the same goal: raise awareness about VAW. We have a chance to educate a new generation of people to live into a better society, with better values and not judging anyone based in your sex, gender, sexual option…we can see that all these people was walking and singing by silent voices of thousands of women who died every minute in their male partners hands; these people was saying: “please, stop. Don’t hurt me anymore!” The candle at the last photo here was lighted to illuminate and to honor those thousands of women who lost their lives based on gender violence.

The Minister for Equality, Bibiana Aído in the International Woman's Day in the European Parliament said that “There cannot be equality until all forms of violence against women are eliminated”. And  the President of the European Parliament, Jerzy Buzek, affirmed that:  “Europe does not care enough about violence against women; there is no statistical information, there are no European measures to fight this kind of violence”. He also said that “a society that allows this to happen is a cruel society”.

It was very interesting to see many old people together with us praying for a new conscientious about all this violence, so we can build a new society which will not allow such kind of violence; this is possible, we could see at this very beautiful day with our voices touching the sky.

In the UE Conference officials “pointed out that if a woman is murdered by her husband, in most systems the crime will be catalogued under the murder statistics and will not surface in the gender violence ledgers.” We, definitely, were there to make the world a Safe World to everyone, to change this reality, because a Safe World for Women is a Safe World for everyone. And we want to let a safe world to our next generation, and on, and on, and on…

Sources:

http://www.canalsur.es/portal_rtva/web/noticia/id/129086/portada/actos_en_andalucia_para_conmemorar_el_dia_contra_la_violencia_hacia_la_mujer

http://asambleafeministadecadiz.blogspot.com/search?updated-min=2010-01-01T00:00:00-08:00&updated-max=2011-01-01T00:00:00-08:00&max-results=8

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/jan/08/spain-europe-protection-battered-women

http://www.eu2010.es/en/documentosynoticias/noticias/mar16_aidoparlameur.html

 http://www.migualdad.es/ss/Satellite?pagename=MinisterioIgualdad/Page/MIGU_home

videos courtesy from Gioconda Diéguez, from Católicas Por el Derecho a Decidir - Peru:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cq4JVjlXUPw

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rSlNKrauyYw