On the occasion of the celebration of the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women, in Spain data and reports referring to the situation in the country are presented, which specifically include specific actions in the field of immigrant women. In this sense, from the International Region we want to highlight that, in order to protect Spanish emigrant women, for 7 years the Government of Spain has established an action protocol between the Ministries of Foreign Affairs, Employment and Social Security, Health, Social Services and Equality for the Care of Spanish Women Victims of Gender Violence Abroad.
For this reason, we will publish the responses of councilors who, representing their respective CREs, are part of the CGCEE, the General Council for Spanish Citizenship Abroad.
We begin the deliveries on this subject with the responses of Laura Foglia de Hériz, counselor for Italy, and Nerea Agúndez Hernández, president of the CRE of Qatar.
Laura Foglia de Hériz, Councilor for Italy
What is, in general, the situation of gender violence in your country of residence?
At the level of numbers, the situation in Italy is not very different from that in Spain. On the other hand, at the cultural and civil awareness level, my perception is that Italy is further behind than Spain in raising awareness in society about the issues of gender violence and inclusiveness.
Do you, as a member of a CRE and as a counselor in the CGCEE, have, for this matter, which may affect Spanish women residing abroad, contact the Spanish representation of these Ministries in the Consulates and Embassies of Spain?
In all sincerity, having started my term a year ago, both as a councilor of the CRE of Milan, which was constituted for the first time in history in June 2021, that as a councilor in the CGCEE I have not yet dealt directly with the councils. Also, and I would add luckily, I have not perceived it as an urgent issue for our community. It is on my list of topics to discuss with the consul at our next CRE meeting in two days and I will continue to contact the ministries and the Embassy in Rome, where the ambassador recently changed.
If you have been aware of any situation involving Spanish women in emigration in which these Ministries have been involved, do you consider that the action has been satisfactory?
Fortunately, I do not know of any direct case to date. In any case, one of the main issues that we have discussed in the meetings of the Youth and Women commission of the CGCEE is the little statistics and information available on the number of cases in which the action protocol has intervened in each country. This significantly hinders our work when it comes to protecting and helping our fellow citizens and also when it comes to drafting proposals that can improve the same protocol.
In any case, do you consider that the protection, dynamism and efficiency when it comes to intervening that Spain offers women residing abroad is sufficient? Would you propose one or more improvements to the established Protocol?
As you probably know, a new draft of the protocol has been in the works for two years and was sent to the Youth and Women Commission for review a few weeks ago. We will try to get many of the proposals that our commission has been working on in the first six months of our mandate to be included directly in the protocol revision.
Finally: being you in it: is this issue the subject of debate in the Youth and Women Commission and in plenary sessions?
As I have answered the previous question, the Youth and Women commission is working directly on the revision of the new inter-ministerial protocol. We are also trying to obtain representation in the Women’s Participation Council so that Spanish women abroad also have an active voice in it. Finally, as I mentioned above, we are fighting to obtain more and better statistics on the subject, also considering the countries where there is no CRE that may have direct information, with the aim of being able to focus our work where it is most required.
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Nerea Agúndez Hernández, counselor for Qatar
What is, in general, the situation of gender violence in your country of residence?
Since the constitution of this Council, we have not been informed of any case of gender-based violence against Spanish residents, nor have we been asked for assistance in any situation of this nature.
Do you, as a member of a CRE and as a counselor in the CGCEE, have, for this matter, which may affect Spanish women residing abroad, contact the Spanish representation of these Ministries in the Consulates and Embassies of Spain?
That’s right, we are informed by our embassy of the existing protocol, the information in this regard has been shared with us and it has been an issue that has been discussed in one of the Council meetings with the embassy, in order to be prepared if we were given the situation to support or help.
If you have been aware of any situation involving Spanish women in emigration in which these Ministries have been involved, do you consider that the action has been satisfactory?
As I mentioned before, we have no record of any case and therefore we cannot go further in answering this question.
In any case, do you consider that the protection, dynamism and efficiency when it comes to intervening that Spain offers women residing abroad is sufficient? Would you propose one or more improvements to the established Protocol?
Again, since we do not have real facts or any situation that we can evaluate, at this moment we could not provide any idea of improvement from this Council.
The guide provided by the government through the Ministry of Equality is accessible, easy to read and understand, and clearly establishes the guidelines for action, complying with the proposed objectives:
– Involve the whole of society in the fight against sexist violence.
– Bring comprehensive services closer to victims through their environment.
– Provide information on how to act in a case of sexist violence to establishments, entities, companies, public bodies.
Lastly: if you are not in it, do you have established protocols for the transfer of information with the corresponding Delegate Commission of the CGCEE? Are you aware that this is a matter of debate in the Youth and Women Commission and in plenary sessions?
Regarding the first question, I am not aware of the existence of these protocols, or at least as a regular director I have not received any official communication from them.
Regarding the second, not belonging to this commission, I am not aware of its ongoing issues, with this I do not mean that they are not working on it, probably yes, and of course I have full confidence in the professionalism and work of all the directors and their extraordinary performance in their committees.
In line with these questions, several suggestions arise to me to improve the information that directors should receive on the ongoing actions of each Commission, and that could be improved, with the sending of a simple official email, monthly or quarterly, newsletter type, where each Commission offers a brief summary responding to some always fixed, common and basic questions for easy reading and understanding:
– Schedule of meetings for the following period
– Structure of the Commission
– Proposals in progress and their status
– Information of interest or some relevant fact of a member of the Commission
Attention to Spanish Women Victims of Gender Violence Abroad – I: Italy and Qatar