Spain launches crackdown on domestic violence
Spain launched a crackdown on domestic violence today, with new courts and prosecutors focusing exclusively on a crime that left 72 women dead last year.
The measures stem from a bill that Parliament approved in December by a unanimous vote. Seventeen courts around the country will now deal solely with violence against women, investigating, pursuing and trying suspects.
More than 300 existing courts will now appoint special investigators to combat the problem. The number of complaints filed by women last year grew 15% from 2003 to nearly 60,000, government figures show.
Montserrat Comas, president of a government agency tasked with monitoring the issue, said this might be because more battered women felt comfortable about going public.
“Victims think they will get better protection than they did until now,” she told the newspaper El Pais.
The initiative was the first one Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero undertook when he came to power in April 2004, declaring himself a “die-hard feminist”.
One of the law’s most controversial clauses was to increase penalties for men accused of beating their current or former spouses or partners, but to leave untouched the punishment level for women accused of the same offence.
Conservatives complained this was unfair to men, but the government insisted it made sense because 90% of all domestic violence complaints filed in 2004 - including parents who allegedly beat their children – came from women.
