More and more women are turning to reception services for victims of gender-based violence, but on the other hand, there is a network of workers mired in precariousness and saturation. This is the main complaint with which employees from various communities will participate this Saturday in a meeting called by different feminist organizations in Madrid. Intended as a first step to forge alliances, the meeting will focus on the “instability” of the health care system, which they call a “structural problem” for the more than 5,000 workers at a time when complaints continue to mount. increase.
With the exception of the drastic drop they suffered in 2020, the year of the pandemic, they have been increasing steadily for years: thus, in 2013, the courts received a total of 124,894 complaints for violence against gender, according to data from the General Council of the Judicial Power. This figure is 59% higher in 2023, a decade later, when 199,282 applications were filed. So far this year, 38 women have been murdered by their partner or ex-partner.
The situation differs depending on the community and even the municipalities, but many demands will be put on the table this Saturday, explains Paqui Guisado, president of the Gender Now Impact platform, one of the promoters: “Many women are starting to have more confidence in public services, but this must be accompanied by good coverage. “We cannot talk about eradicating gender-based violence if we do not have adequate public services. » Almost 20 years after the approval of the Comprehensive Law against Gender Violence, which placed Spain as one of the world references in this area, comprehensive care “is not stabilized and is not is not equipped with sufficient staff,” summarizes the expert.
This is why workers in Madrid have been mobilized for months. Their fatigue led them to carry out two strikes over the conditions of municipal services and the complaints are recurring in a good part of the country such as in Andalusia, the Balearic Islands, Extremadura, Asturias or in Castile and León, where workers will attend also at the meeting. . The situation does not depend so much on the political color of those who govern, say the workers, even if “it is now much bloodier in the frameworks of Vox and the PP where services are even threatened or called into question”, illustrates Guisado .
Two months before an appointment
“There are a lot of prevention campaigns, actions and reports and I think it reaches women, but there are not enough resources. We do not have the means to serve them correctly and with quality. The overflow of the network is general and we cannot cope with it,” summarizes Helena Cobas, social worker at the Assistance Service against Gender Violence (SAVG 24 hours) in Madrid.
Until the drifts happen it can be a month of waiting and during that time you can’t even call them to see how they are doing. During this period, they are sometimes forced to return to their partner.
Hélène Cobas
— SAVG worker 24 hours a day in Madrid
Cobas, a member of the workers’ platform which promotes mobilizations, denounces that waiting lists mean that it takes “up to two months” to make a first appointment and speaks of “saturation” when speaking of places. accommodation for women at risk. Those in imminent danger can access a resource which has only 15 places throughout the capital and is designed for stays of up to 72 hours until they can be referred, if they are. decide, towards a refuge. “There are cases where it took a month or a month and a half because there was no space in the shelters or even to send the women to the hotels,” she says.
The speaker emphasizes that it is the victims themselves who end up being affected and regrets that from her service “we cannot ensure the follow-up of the women that we would like”. The SAVG, 24 hours a day, provides first aid; it is the gateway to the system from which women are generally referred to a center for a longer term approach. “It can take a month for the drifts to happen because they have a waiting list and during that time you can’t even call them to see how they’re doing. During this period, they are sometimes forced to return to their partner because they feel alone and lost. We are a team of 25 people for around 3,000 women per year,” she explains.
Where are the funds going?
Workers acknowledge that in general money allocated to combating gender-based violence has increased in recent years and believe the State Pact Against Gender-Based Violence has been a key stimulus, but they demand greater transparency on the destination of the funds. In this sense, they regret that the Ministry of Equality has not launched the information and evaluation system established in the agreement of the Sectoral Conference, which also allowed municipalities and communities to allocate up to 40% of funds for personnel expenses. “It’s something that doesn’t happen. We spend a lot of money in the campaigns and what we say is that this money must reach the lives of women,” says Guisado.
On the other hand, they insist on the need for multi-year funding. That is to say, the funds are not only subject to a duration of one year, so that at the end they must be justified and start from scratch, but they can be extended, which, according to workers, the Ministry of Finance must allow . “This ends up affecting the maintenance of services and causes instability or continuity of projects,” adds the president of the Gender Now Impact platform, which focuses on a common requirement: that all services of this type be under direct public management. . and are not outsourced to companies, as is the case in some places.
A lot is spent on campaigns and what we are saying is that State Compact money must reach women’s lives.
Paqui Guisado
— President of Gender Impact Platform Now
“We have seen that this does not bring greater quality of service, but it gives greater vulnerability to professionals. Concerning salaries and working conditions, they are governed by a framework which is not that of public employment and there is no stability for a job like this, with such technical requirements. We cannot change professionals or location of the center every two years because we change the specifications and it is assigned to another company,” adds Guisado.
From Andalusia, Paqui Granados, director of the Municipal Women’s Center of the Maracena City Hall, also points out that in many cases companies “do not request specialized training in matters of gender violence and human rights », which sometimes even provokes criticism from the users themselves. , for example, Family Meeting Points. The worker also denounces “the deficit of funds” that “many municipalities” are experiencing due to the “delay in co-financing from the Andalusian government”. Questioned on this subject, the Administration assures that “82% of the agreements have already been signed” and that the resources “have increased by 12% since 2018”.
Greater specialization
Granados welcomes that the community is “taking steps” towards multi-annual financing “of the money that the autonomous community transfers to the municipal coffers for this purpose, but demands greater stability in the figures of the psychologist and legal advisor in the centers who depend on municipal councils, where very often they are not hired full time. “This causes an overload of professionals in many places,” others agree.
Also in these areas, Clara Jiménez Santos, psychologist at a health point in the community of La Vera, located in the province of Cáceres, highlights “the lack of staff”. “Here, in Extremadura, we see a lot of instability and temporality and this ends up causing precariousness,” explains the worker, who also cites as “the lack of training” of new hires and other specific problems that ‘they usually see on the territory. the obstacles that exist to access the centers come from “the poor supply of public transport” or from the feeling of lack of protection that the professionals themselves experience: “In many regions, everyone knows you and that means that we sometimes we even receive threats from the attackers.”
In this sense, Montserrat Vilà, director of the feminist association Hèlia, celebrates that in Catalonia, the modification of Law 5/2008 incorporated so-called second-order violence, that is to say, that which is exercised against people who support theirs. victims. She also believes that in her community it has been important that there is a Department of Equality and Feminism within the Generalitat and an “improvement” of transparency.
Vilà, also president of the Unitary Platform against Gender Violence, another of the entities that organized this Saturday’s meeting, emphasizes like the rest of her colleagues “the saturation” of services and demands “greater specialization” of professionals and “the equalization of salaries and working conditions” of outsourced staff with those of female civil servants. “In addition, there is a need for care actions for workers and support in monitoring cases, because it is a matter of “an essential service in which professionals carry a strong emotional burden,” he emphasizes.
