UN Day Against Violence To Women

An all-too-frequent item in the day's court list, when I was a magistrate in the UK, was offences of domestic violence. The situation seems to be no different here in Spain. The problem is the main focus of much of today's news in the light of this UN day. For those who can read Spanish, this item in the online version of Sur reports 37 cases so far this year in our very small area of Malaga Province, let alone Andalucia, let alone the whole of Spain. At a national level, an average of two women a week are killed by a current or ex-partner, not to mention thousands of women who routinely suffer violence which does not result in death. Back in the summer, we had a case in Nerja, the town down on the coast, 6km away. An Argentinian woman, 25 years old, was stabbed to death at around 9am one Sunday morning on the Balcon de Europa, right in the centre of town. She was killed outside the cafe where she worked, and where she was setting out the tables ready for the day's business. Her Morroccan ex-boyfriend, who had threatened her that if she wanted to return to Argentina, he would make sure she went in a wooden box, was subject to a restraining order that forbade him to approach within 300 metres of her. She had been accompanied from her apartment to the cafe by two members of the Policia Local, because of her fear. They left her in what they judged to be the safe company of her work colleagues. Fifteen minutes later her ex-partner struck.