When the groundbreaking “Only yes means yes” law was passed last October, Spain breathed a sigh of relief: it was hoped that violence against women would finally end. A new wave of murders fuels doubts about the usefulness of the law. Right?
The last month of 2022 went down in Spanish history as “Black December”: eleven women were murdered by their current or former partners, the shock in the country runs deep. There is no news program without a report on sexualized violence, no daily newspaper without a corresponding comment. And the killings didn’t end in January either. Up until this Friday, six women and an eight-year-old girl had died as a result of abuse or rape.
After the introduction of the groundbreaking “Only yes means yes” law, it was actually hoped that the fight against sexual violence against women would finally be under control. “It is impossible not to feel anger and pain in the face of so many women’s lives marked by gender-based violence,” tweeted Equal Opportunities Minister Irene Montero.
The fact that Spain, in addition to its image as a dreamlike holiday destination, still has the reputation of being an arch-Catholic macho country in the eyes of many Central Europeans has to do primarily with the country’s history: During the fascist Franco dictatorship, women were there until well into the 1970s Second-class people were not allowed to have their own bank account or travel abroad alone. A legacy that is still in effect today, even if the situation is no longer so one-dimensional, at least since the horrific murder of Ana Orantes.
In 1997, after 40 years of marital violence, the mother of 11 children went to the press and reported publicly about her suffering – after reports to the police had repeatedly come to nothing. Less than two weeks later, the ex-husband doused Orantes in petrol and set her on fire.
All over Spain people took to the streets against the violence at the time, at first a few hundred, later thousands. A rethinking, slow at first, then accelerating, set in motion a process that continues to this day. The preliminary highlight was the introduction of the so-called “Only yes means yes” law in October last year. As one of the first countries in Europe, Spanish law now requires explicit consent to sexual acts, there is no longer a difference between sexual abuse and sexual assault.
It was precisely this distinction that shook the Iberian peninsula again in 2016 and ultimately triggered the groundbreaking amendment to the law: five men attacked an 18-year-old woman on the fringes of the traditional bull hunt in Pamplona. “The pack” (“La Manada”), as the men called themselves, filmed the oral, vaginal and anal rape of the woman, then left her crying and devastated at the scene of the crime and later distributed the video via WhatsApp.
Because a court saw the young woman’s passivity as a lack of resistance, the perpetrators got off with the lightest possible sentence: nine years in prison. The verdict triggered a storm of indignation in the country, and Spain’s Supreme Court later revised the decision and imposed the maximum sentence of 15 years: “What kind of resistance should an 18-year-old, threatened and forced down by five adult men, offer?” asked the Chief Justices rhetorically in their verdict at the time. A few years later, after endless debates and more rapes and murders, “Only yes means yes” has recently been enshrined in the Spanish constitution.
But the new law has only worked to a limited extent so far: not only were eleven women murdered in Spain in “Black December,” but because of the leveling of the law, some perpetrators are now even getting off with lesser sentences than before. For example, a man from Madrid whose sentence was reduced from eight to six years for abusing his stepdaughter.
“The alarming numbers show that mistakes were made somewhere here,” said Isabel Rodríguez, spokeswoman for the left-wing Podemos party. “The Spanish system for violence against women is groundbreaking, but we have to look closely to see if and where there is a need for modernization.” Depending on the reading, technical errors by the Ministry for Equal Rights under the leadership of Irene Montero are responsible for the problems. Or, as pointed out by Montero and other politicians, “macismos” or “fascists in robes”, who deliberately exploited loopholes in the law to punish rapists more leniently. The truth probably lies somewhere in the middle.
In any case, one thing is certain: violence against women is an issue, always and everywhere. 49 women were murdered last year. And although Germany in 2021 a total of 109 women were victims of murder and manslaughter in partnerships, i.e. significantly higher numbers extrapolated to the number of inhabitants, Spanish politics is much more active to contain the numbers again. According to the most recent crimes, the country’s public prosecutors will in future also be able to apply for precautionary measures to protect victims of domestic violence if no complaint has been made but there are sufficient indications of a threat.
In any case, there has long been no talk of “relationship acts” or “family dramas” in Spain: Violence against women is seen as a structural problem affecting society as a whole. Gender-based violence has been systematically recorded in the country since around 2007, and a data-protected risk assessment called VioGén was created from more than 700,000 police documents recorded. Based on a completed questionnaire and with the help of an algorithm, every woman who seeks help from the police receives individual recommendations based on the likely risk – from a simple contact ban to permanent police protection. For example, if the woman states that she was choked, the alert is high: the data collected suggests that this form of violence has led to murder or attempted murder comparatively often in the past.
The change in perspective away from the private to the social problem also enables a more concentrated approach to the issue: This year, for example, the government is making 320 million euros available for combating violence against women alone. And a “state strategy” up to the year 2025 includes a total of 267 concrete measures, from prevention to compensation for the victims.
In an emotional statement to Parliament, Equal Opportunities Minister Montero acknowledged that the path to a real “Only yes means yes” is far from over on the Iberian peninsula: “The law may need a certain amount of time to be enacted to establish” and meanwhile “causes problems or difficulties in its application,” said the politician who came under fire. “But I sincerely hope that the change introduced with the reform of the penal code will facilitate its correct interpretation.” The time will tell.
