The impact of gender violence on the economic policies of the welfare state

The problem of gender violence, It has undergone numerous changes in recent years and has gone from being considered as an individual problem, which was often admitted as something intrinsic to marriage, to being considered as a social problem, that affects all citizens and that has numerous social, political and economic repercussions.

Without a doubt, the Comprehensive Law on Gender Violence, has been a very important advance in the fight against this problem. However, neither all the measures have been taken to achieve the eradication of this scourge nor are all available means and resources being used correctly.

In this work I have wanted to reflect from my point of view, that it is interdisciplinary at all times, and where the vision of the Psychology, Social Work and Law, understanding that any individualistic approach will lead to failure and the perpetuation of this trouble.

I have also decided to include the provisional data referring to a field work that I am carrying out and where they are already clearly appreciated. As current economic policies, in addition to involving community social spending, are not solving the problem itself: neither the victims They are neither protected nor financially supported, since they simply receive specific aid that represents a temporary patch to their situation.

On the other hand, certain equally disadvantaged sectors of the population perceive these policies as clearly discriminatory. This has resulted in a general dissatisfaction, and a waste of resources that does not finally achieve its initial objective, which is the comprehensive protection of the victim, the punishment of the aggressor and the involvement of the society.

In this PsychologyOnline article, we will talk about The impact of gender violence on the economic policies of the welfare state.

Index

1. The impact of gender violence
2. Current situation: Legal treatment of gender violence in the Spanish state
3. Current situation: Legal treatment of gender violence in the Spanish state II
4. Gender violence in comprehensive law. Positive discrimination
5. The role of budgets in gender inequality I. Introduction
6. Gender violence and the economy
7. The impact of female discrimination on the world economy
8. New technologies and economic savings
9. Conclusions

Gender-based violence is a type of violence that affects women just because they are. It is an attack against the integrity, dignity and freedom of women, regardless of the area in which it occurs.

We understand by gender violence any violent act or assault, and that is based on a situation of inequality within a system of relations of domination of men over women and that has as a consequence physical, sexual or psychological damage, both if it occurs in the public or private sphere (Law 11/2007 of July 27, for the prevention and comprehensive treatment of violence against gender).

The concept of “gender violence” gives its name to a major problem, and that until recently was considered a family matter that should not transcend the public sphere and in which it was not necessary to intervene. This conception favored the reinforcement of the situation of subordination of women with respect to men and implied assuming relationships historically unequal powers and that legitimized man to maintain his status of domination by all means, including the violence.

The problem of gender violence crosses borders and occurs in all countries of the world. We must remember that violence is a learned relationship strategy, not innate, so not all people are violent or to the same degree, nor do we use it as a rule in our relationships, but we can agree, negotiate, talk and reach an agreement. The abusers they are selective in the use of violence, and this shows that they are capable of controlling themselves in other situations. Regardless of the forms in which violence manifests itself, the objective is always the same: erode a woman's self-esteem in order for the aggressor to increase her degree of power and control over her.

Although we normally identify gender-based violence with physical violence, there are various forms of violence, which we must be aware of:

• Physical violence: includes any act of force against the woman with the result of physical injury or damage: beatings, burns, pinches, use of weapons, assassination attempts... Physical abuse is the most obvious and the easiest to prove.
• Psychological Violence: includes any verbal or non-verbal behavior that devalues ​​the woman: insults, slights, abuse of control, disrespect, demand for obedience, use of her children to harm her, punish her with silence, blame her for everything that happens, an exaggerated display of jealousy... Psychic abuse is the most difficult to detect but it is the most damaging in the long term, since it totally destroys a woman's self-esteem and personality.
• Sexual Violence: include any act of a sexual nature not consented to by the woman: performance of sexual acts by means of force or intimidation, sexual abuse (when the subject in position of superiority with respect to the victim demands favors of a sexual nature) regardless of whether or not the aggressor has an affective relationship, couple or kinship with the victim.
• Trafficking of women for the purpose of exploitation: include the recruitment, transport, transfer, reception or reception of people resorting to the threat, coercion, fraud, deception or abuse of power or of a situation of special vulnerability to obtain the consent of a person who has authority over another for the purposes of sexual exploitation, forced labor slavery.
• Economic violence: it includes the intentional deprivation of resources for the well-being of the woman and children or the discrimination of shared resources in the sphere of the couple. The aggressor thus ensures the total dependence of the victim on her person.

Any of these subtypes of violence causes a great impact on victims and society in general, a cultural change being necessary, which complements the current economic and legislative measures, which we will comment on below.

The use of the expression “gender violence” is as recent as the own recognition of the reality of mistreatment of women.

It is significant that until well into the last century we did not find any precise reference to this form of violence in the texts. except perhaps as an indeterminate expression of one of the forms of discrimination against women prescribed by the United Nations Convention United in 1979. Only as of the 1990s did their employment begin to consolidate thanks to initiatives such as the World Conference for Human Rights held in Vienna in 1993, the United Nations Declaration on the Elimination of Violence against Women in 1993, the Inter-American Convention in order to prevent, punish and eradicate violence against women in 1994 or the 1995 Beijing World Conference of Women.

It is one more manifestation of the resistance that exists to recognize that violence against women is not a biological or domestic issue, but a gender issue. It is an essential theoretical variable to be able to understand that the difference between the sexes is not the reason for the antagonism, that it is not an individual violence exerted in the family or couple environment by the man towards the woman, but it is the consequence of a situation of discrimination that has its origin in a patriarchal social structure.

The explanation of gender violence must be approached from a cultural and not biological point of view. Therefore, national or international regulations accompany their articles with a prior description. about the violence they seek to combat: The 1993 United Nations Declaration when it recognizes that is “Constitutes a manifestation of historically unequal power relations between men and women that have led to the domination of women and discrimination against them by men and prevented the full advancement of women, and that the Violence against women is one of the fundamental social mechanisms by which women are forced into a situation of subordination to man”. Or the European Parliament Resolution on zero tolerance for violence against women of September 16, 1997 that links it “to the imbalance in power relations between the sexes in the social, economic, religious or political spheres... ”Or, in the most particular field of the States, the first article of the recent Spanish Law 1/2004 of 28 December of Comprehensive protection measures against gender violence (hereinafter Comprehensive Law of 2004) that the identifies as "a manifestation of discrimination, the situation of inequality and the power relations of men over women ”.

Violence against women has shown its effectiveness in correcting the transgression and guaranteeing the continuity of a traditional order of values ​​imposed by reason of gender. Relationships as a couple or family coexistence are a privileged setting for this violence, but they cannot monopolize the multiplicity of demonstrations that are hidden under the label of violence of gender.

Reducing this equalization is always negative, because it masks the reality of a mistreatment that victimizes women for the fact of being, beyond their personal, affectionate or sexual relationships, whether they take place in the workplace, social or personal. In addition, it relativizes the origin and meaning of this violence by making other vulnerable members participate in it, generalizing the The idea that everyone is the victim of an occasional aggressiveness that occurs naturally on the part of the strongest members of the group.

This image of the problem is usually common in the collective conscience and is transferred to its evaluation by the Law, causing adverse effects.

One of the most important has its origin in the assimilation of the woman to the weakest members of the aggressor's environment. In this way, social concern about violence against women is not focused on them and on the reasons that explain their victimization, but is transferred to the family and its members as a consequence of the natural position of inferiority shared by the woman. They are part of the cultural patterns so deeply rooted in society that they have ended up being normalized, and considered natural.

Hence, the problem of abuse is kept as something private, as a secret or taboo that should not counted outside the domestic sphere and that the group itself must resolve without external intervention some. This is one of the cultural prejudices that have most hindered the prosecution of gender-based violence, which continues to be the “invisible crime”.

It is curious that most of the statements that try to combat gender violence, recommend raising awareness in society, so that it takes awareness of the seriousness of the problem and change your attitude towards violence against women. The perspective of women must be present in the social and legal debate that seeks solutions to this problem. Her most precious assets (life, integrity, freedom, dignity ...) are at stake and not those of the family, so her defense must be organized based on her personal interests. Invoking family integrity in cases of male violence, weakens the position of women before the law and society since it confirms one of the roles most present in her cultural learning, that of assuming responsibility for safeguarding and suffering guilt for her failure.

We must not forget that normally women are conceived as guarantors of family peace and responsible for the avoidance of conflicts that may threaten conjugal coexistence and the care and protection of children. For this reason, they assume joint responsibility in cases in which the woman is unable to contain the aggressiveness or violence of which she herself is a victim.

Violence against women is a useful model of violence for continue with gender representations.

There are many behaviors that are an expression of this violence against women. In its resolution on Zero Tolerance of 1997, the European Parliament took up the definition that the United Nations elaborated in the Beijing platform for action referring to “Any act of specific violence for reasons of sex... both in the family, in the workplace or in society... which includes, among others, the mistreatment, physical assaults, genital and sexual mutilation, incest, sexual harassment, abuse, rape, trafficking in women... whenever they result or physical, sexual or mental harm or suffering may result for women, including the threat of such acts, coercion or arbitrary deprivation of Liberty". They are practices that have society as a stage even if it manifests itself in the family. Examples would be apart from spousal abuse are the sexual abuse of girls domestic violence, dowry-related violence or exploitation, the violation for the husband, the genital mutilation, in accordance with the United Nations report in its 1993 declaration on the elimination of forms of discrimination against women.

But there are many others that transcend the family such as abuse by strangers, sexual harassment and intimidation at work, trafficking in women and forced prostitution at times like today where there is a growing trend towards the feminization of the immigration. All these situations have in common the Submission of women, due to their status as a womanIn these conditions, recourse to the protection of the state should guarantee women high levels of freedom. Her perspective must be essential when dealing with the violence that she is subjected to. The call for women's personal autonomy as the key to conflict resolution is not new.

In the 80s in Italy, controversy arose due to the reform process of crimes against sexual freedom. In this case, it was understood that prosecution at the request of the party left an inalienable space for the woman to decide freely according to her real interests.

Today, comprehensive law 1/2004 has updated that debate. The application of a crime of violation of sentence (art. 468.2 CP) for cases of disobedience to restraining orders or incommunicado judicially decreed against the aggressor in cases of mistreatment of women has caused significant problems. The problem arose with the previous law (LO 15/2003 of November 25) that gave mandatory character to the indiscriminate application of these protection measures to victims without or against their consent (art. 57.2CP).

This was explicitly denounced by one of the first sentences on the subject “...The court considers it absolutely inadmissible to adopt measures to protect the victim... against the express will of the victim herself, when she is an adult person endowed with full capacity to act, who must be assumed to have full mental faculties and in a position to judge his own interests... Another thing would be to treat victims of gender violence as subjects whose capacity for self-determination is abolished or limited and whose interest must be protected institutionally above her own opinion, in the manner of minors or the incapable, which frankly seems offensive to the personal dignity of the victim who is precisely it aims to protect... ”.

In recent years, two issues of unconstitutionality have echoed unjust consequences that have been followed by the practice of these precepts and have demanded the need to consider the perspective of the woman, preventing her from being subjected by the abuser to to be submitted by the State.

His reception has not been peaceful and the cost of its practical viability is still very high. The lack of parliamentary support for this selective protection of women by the most conservative forces in our country had already distorted this proposed, by wanting to extend this protection regime to other vulnerable victims who lived with the perpetrator, making room for other dependent members of the unit family. Once again, gender violence would be masked by domestic violence.

It is significant that it is only the individualized reference to the woman that provokes the conflict, even when the legal formula guarantees the equal treatment of one and the other through the reinforced criminal protection that grant. It is a very explicit manifestation of the difficulties that the implantation of a gender ideology intended for women. For this reason, the ideal would be to devise other informal or formal forms of conflict resolution such as recourse to other legal, civil, labor or administrative instances.

Beyond the strategies that the Law can offer, it is necessary to make the collective conscience understand the need to identify, value and overcome the discrimination, inequality and exclusion of women, the result of a cultural gender model that seems to have the pretense of remaining invisible.

Since gender violence became a matter of public interest, the Spanish law tried to combat it within a generalist model. However, this led to confusion between gender violence and domestic violence.

LO 1/2004 tries to redirect this situation by defining gender violence as that suffered by women women as a consequence of a situation of inequality and the power relations of men over women women. It is thus made clear that violence against women constitutes a specific category of social violence that has its origin in the structural discrimination of women due to an unequal distribution of social roles and that it does not correspond to sex male.

Therefore, this law has a series of measures of a different nature aimed at combating gender violence in a comprehensive way. Since long-term strategies aimed at transmitting to society new scales of values ​​based on respect for fundamental rights and freedoms and equality between men and women, including control of sexist advertising, the training of judges and prosecutors or others of immediate realization that seek promote the autonomy of battered women to facilitate the reintegration of her into social and work life with comprehensive assistance to victims, free legal assistance, and a battery of measures of prevention and control.

However, this wide range of non-criminal measures has not succeeded in imposing the image of a law willing to open itself beyond recourse to Criminal Law. Quite the contrary, from the beginning all eyes have been directed to developments of a political-criminal nature, which is the most controversial aspect of this new set of regulations.

Specifically, there are two guidelines that define the new model: the decision to create a criminal guardianship reinforced applicable only to women and the increase in the severity of the criminal response to violence of genre.

Only timidly, this law tries some other alternative such as the decision to give an opportunity to treatment of aggressors. This is expressed in article 8.3, by virtue of which it is mandatory to impose a convicted person for a crime of violence gender the duty to participate in training, labor, cultural, road education, sexual and Similar.

On the other hand, it provides for the implementation, within the prison environment of different programs for interns convicted of crimes of gender violence. These programs are relevant to obtain prison benefits such as progression in grade, exit permits or parole.

Betting on aggressor therapy It has always aroused great reluctance among sectors related to gender violence, since it understands that it is a way of diverting funds and efforts towards the responsible for the abuse rather than towards the victim.

However, these opinions lose sight of the fact that these types of initiatives are beneficial for their own. victims, since the control of aggression can reduce the high risk of recidivism in these criminals. In addition, it must be remembered that criminal law must fulfill a re-socializing function that cannot be vetoed just because the nature of the crime is considered largely reprehensible.

Every offender has the right to reintegration and there is nothing that limits abusers from being able to opt for that possibility.

THE CONCEPT OF NON-DISCRIMINATION

To assess the constitutionality of this law, it is necessary to look at the scope and content of the non-discrimination mandate of art. 14 CE, and the so-called “positive discrimination”.

It is convenient to remember that both jurisprudence and specialized doctrine have clearly outlined the differences between the constitutional mandate of non-discrimination and the principle of formal equality, both included in the art.14 CE.

The prohibition of non-discrimination is not a mere specification of the principle of formal equality, but an additional protection measure that finds its reason for being in the insufficiency of that principle to guarantee all citizens the full enjoyment of fundamental rights and freedoms public. This happens this way, because not all citizens occupy the same starting position in the social structure, but there are some groups that Certain identity characters such as nationality, religion, sex, etc., are undervalued and are placed in a subordinate position in the distribution of social roles.

This subordination places the members of that group at a disadvantage with respect to those who occupy a position of power, which produces an initial imbalance that obviously distorts the effects of the principle of equality formal.

For this reason, a neutral application of the principle of formal equality will only perpetuate inequality and oppress certain groups.

The function of the mandate of non-discrimination is to neutralize the initial disadvantage that certain groups represent its defining characteristics. Substantial equality must be guaranteed, removing the obstacles for certain citizens to belong to a socially displaced group. Therefore, it is a measure designed to protect these people and not those who are part of the dominant sector. Therefore, we must understand that all legal provisions aimed at promoting discrimination are direct to protect exclusively the members of the discriminated groups and not the group dominant.

Thus, the law recognizes the feminine condition constitutes one of those identity characters that place a part of the population in a subordinate position on the social scale, and in need of a more intense guardianship. These types of measures are designed to favor and facilitate the full incorporation of women into public or working life. All this, based on the need to balance the situation of inequality of opportunities between men and women derived from the merely domestic function to which, for centuries, sex has been relegated feminine.

Far from being a factor of tension with respect to the anti-discrimination mandate, positive action policies constitute authentic concretions of this constitutional principle.

The General Council of the Judiciary established that the only distinctive feature of violence against women is quantitative in nature: it only differs from the aggressions suffered by men at the hands of their female partners in which the number of battered women is greater than that of men in circumstantial circumstances similar. The problem with these reasoning lies in not wanting to admit that gender violence constitutes a specific category of violence, associated with the position that men occupy in the social structure.

According to the United Nations, “violence against women constitutes a manifestation of historically unequal power relations between men and women who have led to the domination of women and discrimination against them by men and impeded advancement full of women... is one of the fundamental social mechanisms by which women are forced into a subordinate position with respect to the man"Or as the European Parliament recognizes, it is violence"undoubtedly linked to the imbalance in power relations between the sexes in the social sphere, economic, religious and political despite national and international legislation in favor of the equality"

The situation of inequality between women and men is an object of concern for both European public institutions, as well as national or regional ones. This inequality is approached from a multidisciplinary point of view, in such a way that the concept of inequality is approached from different fields of study.

In recent years, a greater emphasis on education and work, but at present, the analysis has been extended to public finances and globalization.

The public economy encompasses the set of economic decisions made by public authorities They take and constitute what goods and services to produce, how to produce them, and to whom to direct that production. Like any economic activity, the planning and management of the public budget in a country, autonomous community or local entity, supposes the economic choice in the face of scarce resources; a choice that can affect women and men differently.

Traditionally, public budgets have been presented as gender neutral, so that their planning, realization and implementation supposedly affect men and women equally women. However, This gender neutrality is not real and thus it is verified that the absence of gender analysis in the realization of the budgets it translates into different impacts between men and women.

Public budgets are an instrument of social policy and economic that reflects the priority of the State with respect to the well-being of the population and the development of the country, as well as its commitment to the human rights of its citizens.

The way in which budgetary resources are distributed plays a very important role in creating conditions favorable conditions that compensate for gender inequalities and to eradicate discrimination and violence against women women.

Hence, the importance of creating gender-sensitive budgets, whose planning and programming contribute to the advancement of equality. For this, it is necessary to identify the sectorial or local policy interventions that are required to meet the specific needs of women and thus eliminate discrimination.

With this, we seek to strengthen the regulatory framework and achieve equality, as well as consolidate mechanisms of evaluation of budgets for transparency to women. Various NGOs promote legislative harmonization so that budget and tax liability laws contemplate gender equality.

Politics can reduce or increase inequalities between men and women in different areas such as education, nutrition, health... To achieve gender equality, temporary special measures, that are geared towards paving the way for equality. An example would be the allocation of public resources labeled to programs and actions that particularly benefit women and that their destiny is guaranteed by law. The idea of ​​gender-sensitive budgeting is something new on a global scale. It began in Australia in 1984, and later, at the Fourth Beijing Conference in 1995, it was given a new impetus.

Most of these actions are being carried out in Latin American countries, with very good results, and always taking into account the characteristics of each country and its culture.

In Spain, lhe majority of the actions carried out are restorative and not preventive.or, in other words, a budget item is allocated to repair the situation of many women who are victims of gender violence. These types of actions are not sufficient nor do they resolve the situation of the victims, in addition to creating a social conflict with other groups of women in disadvantaged situations, but who are not victims of gender-based violence and who are in a situation of discrimination.

It would be important to prevention awareness, which would translate, although in the medium or long term, into an educational change and a saving of resources for the country.

The costs of violence against women are enormous and range from health costs to physical, mental and emotional damage, economic costs due to the lower participation of the women victims of violence, higher absenteeism and lower productivity at work and social costs due to the impact on the family and children.

So far, the policy has tried to respond to this problem from three main axes: the first would be the groups of measures related to the support and protection of victims, which has been the pillar of public policies in most countries against gender violence. The second would be measures to achieve legal reforms that criminalize gender violence and punish the aggressors. The third would be prevention and awareness activities for all sectors involved in this problem.

The problem of domestic violence has been addressed by different sciences, from sociology, through criminology and even economics, among others. Economic science has leaned towards theories that seek to understand the use of intimate partner violence from a more rational perspective. One of these theories understands the family as an institution in which its members have different preferences, decisions are made based on an internal negotiation process and the level of well-being of each depends on the results of these negotiation processes. negotiation. A central characteristic of these models is that the bargaining power of each member is determined by their “Point of threat”, understood as the level of well-being that could be accessed in case of deciding to end the relationship.

These models predict that a improvement in the level of well-being of a household member in case of divorce, improves her bargaining power within the marriage and this translates into a redistribution of the marriage earnings in her favor. Applied to contexts in which there is violence against women, they predict that better employment opportunities or work income for abused women, greater victim support services, more favorable divorce legislation, among other things, by improving the victim's situation outside of marriage, can translate into in a lower level of violence within it, since the threat of leaving the relationship is more credible.

This model of negotiation within the home has been empirically tested by several studies and in different contexts, and in general, the results tend to confirm its predictions. Violence against women is reduced when job opportunities improve for these.

In a recent study, the effect of reduction in divorce costs in Spain in 2005, after the last reform in this regard. A reduction in divorce costs can facilitate the dissolution of an abusive relationship, thus improving the situation of the victim within the marriage. The results of this reform were a significant drop in violence against women, especially those that continued married after that legislative change, which suggests that the main mechanism was the improvement in the relative situation of the woman.

In July 2005, a reform of the C. civil law in Spain that eliminated the reform period, known as “express divorce”, and that implied going from a regime with mandatory separation, where required the consent of both spouses to a unilateral one, without expression of cause and prompt, which reduced both the psychological and economic costs of a divorce. As a result, the number of divorces increased and the number of separations decreased.

The reduction of certain costs, like divorces, can improve the situation of victims abuse, since it facilitates them to leave the relationship in a faster and easier way and improves their bargaining power, reducing the level of conflict.

On the other hand, it is necessary isolate the effect of the reform from other institutional changes that could have affected the levels of violence against women. To do this, the study used married couples as the treatment group and a group of unmarried couples as the control group. They compared the change in intimate partner violence for married women before and after the reform, with the change in violence for women who are not directly affected by that reform.

The strategy for estimating the effect of the reduction in divorce costs on violence showed a drop in violence in women married just one year after the reform, both in relation to the period prior to it and in relation to the group of control.

Specifically, a drop between 25-35% in the levels of violence against women, regardless of the measure of violence used (physical, sexual, psychological abuse ...)

Violence against women is a scourge in our society, with high costs for victims, health systems, and society in general. The true dimension of the problem it is difficult to quantify due to the scarcity of statistics.

Results obtained in this study and similar ones show the importance of the economy in situations of violence, and how by reducing economic costs in some situations we can improve the bargaining power of women victims of gender violence.

Gender inequality is a phenomenon that is present in all modern societies and that causes women to receive lower salaries for the same work, that they cannot access quality training or that they have limited access to hierarchical positions, as denounced by Sri Mulyani Indrawati, Director of Management and Chief Operating Officer of the Bank World.

It argues that in more than 100 countries around the world, women are limited in their access to certain jobs simply for a matter of sex and that in more than a hundred countries they are discriminated by law. In fact, only 18 countries have succeeded in abolishing any type of law that puts women at a disadvantage.

The World Bank Group published a report in which it reveals that in 32 countries women even request their passport in a formal manner. different from a man and in any of them, if the husband considers that it is not the best for the family, he can prohibit the right to work as his wife.

In many countries there are not even laws that protect women from sexual harassment at work, nor is there legal protection against domestic violence.

These countries where they discriminate against women and do not promote gender equality, feel the negative consequences in economic terms, since gender gaps in entrepreneurship and workforce translate into a loss of income of 27% in Africa, 20% in Asia, 14% in Latin America and 10% in Europe.

On the contrary, there are countries like Bangladesh that encourage female participation in the labor force, and It is estimated that in ten years, it will go from 34% of working women to 80%, boosting the growth of the GDP.

Whereas twenty years ago, only a few countries had laws to protect women from violence, today more than a hundred countries have it regulated, because they have warned of the economic and human cost of mistreatment of women.

When a woman is allowed to choose her career and access financial services, when it is guaranteed by law protected from gender-based violence, they are not only economically empowered, but their life. The more they decide on household income, the more they participate in the economy, the more they access education, the greater the benefits for society in general.

Although it is true, that many times the protection of women is found in the laws and is not carried out In practice, courts and judges provide effective legal action to combat situations of abuse and abuse.

To this end, many countries have taken favorable positions towards women in recent years. The benefits are observed public and private level.

“Policy makers have decision-making power. They can use the overwhelming evidence showing the benefits of equality and try to remove discriminatory laws from the system that restrain women or they can maintain the status quo and condemn entire societies to a higher degree of poverty than they should to have”(Sri, Mulyani Indrawati).

Despite the vast amount of information regarding gender-based violence, some women still find it very difficult to identify their situation as such. This problem is further aggravated in adolescent girls since the signals they perceive are the anticipation of a very damaging form of bullying.

It is striking the Upward trend, with a clear rebound in permissibility that teens show towards certain forms of abuse like control or harassment. There is an alarming level of tolerance and acceptance of young people towards certain types of abuse. They perceive excessive control of communications or limitations when it comes to dressing as normal, justifying these vigilances as a romantic love that leads to “normal” jealousy. However, they must be made to understand that there is no normal jealousy, and that it is a sign of insecurity and mistrust.

Social networks facilitate this movement control, so it is recommended to avoid certain instruments such as the double blue WhatsApp check, which can be easily deactivated. New technologies have opened a new scenario for abuse, with a rise in cases of violence among girls as young as twelve or fourteen years old.

In a recent survey on abuse in 2011, carried out by FRA at the European Institute for Equality, it is observed that 3% of adolescent girls admit to having have been hit by their partners, 5% have been forced into sexual behaviors in which they did not want to participate and 6% have received threatening messages or insulting.

The positive part of this type of abuse is that it is very easy and common for it to be visible to more people. In adolescents, it is usually the friends who sound the alarm. With this, material and technical means are saved and it is also more frequently reported Therefore, it is also usually necessary to intervene earlier and avoid serious and lasting damage to the victim and to be able to carry out an early intervention also in the aggressor.

Although the Comprehensive Law 1/2004 has meant a great advance in the fight against violence, By pursuing this type of behavior and seeking comprehensive protection for the victim, the truth is that on a practical level we have a lot to advance.

On the one hand, the protection of the victim is not being carried out. Because? Because it is limited to meeting her needs, and not all, temporarily. A victim does not have access to therapy from the first moment, and not because that possibility does not exist, but if there is in certain autonomies, where victims have the right to free psychological therapy, but because most of the time, the agents involved (police, health or social services personnel) are unaware of its existence and its requirements and this information is not given to the victim. With this, that victim and her children will not have basic help to make them aware of her situation and we can prevent it from happening again.

At the legal level, they are not well advised judicially from the beginning of the process, they are not informed of the duration nor the sorrow and most of the time, they have the feeling of having been abandoned by the administration.

Economically, the help they receive is the equivalent of a subsistence income for six months or a year and a half if they have family dependents. On the basis that the majority of these women have been annulled as people in the situation of abuse and isolated from the society, except in the case of a professional, the majority profile corresponds to that of a woman with few resources, who depends on her aggressor and that he has an atrocious fear of losing her children, making it extremely difficult for him to decide to denounce this situation of violence.

As for the care of the abuser, it is not working properly either. Very few have access to preventive therapy, before the situation of violence and denunciation. Therapies carried out on a compulsory basis in correctional institutions rarely work, since that are not motivated by the aggressor and are used simply for profit penitentiaries. As long as that does not change, that aggressor will continue to react in the same way, because we already said that the Violence was something learned, not innate, and he will repeat that situation of abuse with his next couples

In addition to these handicaps, and as established by law, we must add the discontent of society, especially from other victims who see an exaggerated positive discrimination towards victims of gender violence.

I have analyzed this issue through field work, carried out in Vigo on 150 women between 18-60 years of age. The group of victims of violence considers the support and protection measures they receive insufficient, while in the control group they are perceived as too discriminatory in relation to other collectives. Being aware of all the aids and programs available, we have verified the lack of training specific of the professionals who care for these women and how little use is made of the resources available.

A change in mindset is necessary, focusing on preventive work, and abandoning the current idea that focuses mainly on the restorative phase.

Without a change in education from the first levels of schooling, without the specific training of professionals and Without the involvement of society, we will continue to patch things up and we will not be able to prevent this problem from continuing to be a scourge. Social.

This article is merely informative, in Psychology-Online we do not have the power to make a diagnosis or recommend a treatment. We invite you to go to a psychologist to treat your particular case.

If you want to read more articles similar to The impact of gender violence on the economic policies of the welfare state, we recommend that you enter our category of Intimate partner violence.

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