The telephone of Sonia Vaccaro not for these days of dreaming. Spain is experiencing a rebound gender violence Over the minors unpublished to date. Seven children have been murdered at the hands of their parents in four months, which represents the worst start to the year since the number of children murdered by their own parents has been counted. parents or their mothers’ partners or ex-partners, in a context of extreme gender violence. Vaccaro, who is a forensic psychologist of Argentine origin, was the one who coined the term vicarious violence and she is an expert in this type of aggression, which is why there are many who these days resort to her experience to make a diagnosis and look for solutions.
Seven little ones died in just four months. What’s going on?
I don’t think there is a single reason to which we can attribute this upsurge in violence against women and their sons and daughters. But I do believe that we have not given it the radical importance that it has. It is time to start thinking in terms of a State of Alarm and treat and address the problem as sexist terrorism, because it is a form of terrorism that murders women for being women, and their daughters and sons. This has been favored because legitimate denialist voices have emerged in positions of power and decision-making. I do not understand that in Spain, which has been working hard for years in the fight against sexist violence and has an exemplary legal corpus, these things continue to happen. And we cannot continue to react alone when tragedies of this nature occur.
The last case, which happened in El Prat, the murderer killed his children along with the mother, it would not be strictly a case of vicarious violence, right?
No, because vicarious violence is what the abuser exerts on the children to go against the mother. In this case he has killed everyone: it is more of a sexist murderer who believes he is the owner of his family and his offspring and disposes of everyone’s lives.
The collective imagination of those who have to apply the laws continues to be patriarchal, that is where the system breaks down
The most extreme vicarious violence is when children are killed to hurt the mother, but what other forms of vicarious violence are there?
Indeed, it is when they are murdered or made to disappear, but there are everyday forms of vicarious violence that involve using sons and daughters to harm the mother. It can be by speaking badly about the mother, telling them absurd stories that the children cannot verify, such as that the mother did not want them to be born, or did not want to breastfeed them, and many other inventions with which they try to turn the boy or girl against the mother. mother. They can also mistreat them, but they are not the attacks that violent people generally do and that they try to hide, but rather they perpetrate them so that the mother knows. Like tearing their clothes when they are in their care, having them return barefoot in the middle of winter or warm in the middle of summer, interrupting medical treatments that they have to follow during the period they are with him and hundreds of other modalities. Even preventing the mother from contacting them and sending her photos or news of other murders without her knowing where they are.
What measures have already been implemented in Spain to protect minors from gender violence?
Many measures have been introduced in Spain, it has a very good legislative body. For example, the child protection law precisely suspends visits and custody of parents reported for gender violence. What happens is that the collective imagination of those who have to apply these laws continues to be patriarchal. And we see that they resist removing custody or preventing visits from these individuals, claiming that they are their parents. This is where unfortunately the entire system leaks. A violent individual is not a father. A father is something else. A violent individual is going to use his children as an object, he is going to harm them and it is not good for any child to grow up next to a violent guy who insults, mistreats, hits, threatens to kill their mother and sometimes themselves.
It is insisted that you cannot leave a child without a father, but you have to understand that a parent is something else, an individual who mistreats is of no use to anyone to grow.
So the problem is not the legal corpus, but its application.
Indeed. The law should be followed to the letter with a mentality that does not defend a patriarch like these and that understands once and for all that an abuser is not a father. If this imaginary is not modified, we will have to continue seeing how creatures continue to be murdered. It is in the hands of the entire system and the institutions to prevent it. Because this can be prevented. We experts have been saying this for a long time, but it is insisted that a child cannot be left without a father and we must understand that a father is something else, an individual like that is of no use to anyone to grow as a protective entity, nor as example in life.
These individuals have a double facade, they are skilled in social contact and they will never reveal anything to those who may be observing them.
And in the rest of the institutions, do they also work with that patriarchal mentality?
In justice there are people really working, with a gender perspective, firmly looking out for children, but they are still the exception and not the rule. And the same thing happens in other institutions that are in charge of helping women or their children, such as meeting points or social services. There is a collective imagination that continues to be patriarchal and defends at all costs the role of the ‘paterfamilias’, regardless of its background or violent modalities. And these individuals have a double façade: they are skilled in social contact and will never reveal anything to someone who they know is going to evaluate them or may be observing them. Therefore, it is very important that there are trained people working in social services and meeting points, with thoughts that do not favor machismo.
You have studied the statistics in detail. What traits do aggressors who inflict violence on their children have?
They are healthy children of patriarchy, simply staunch sexists, who do not admit losing control and power over a family that they consider their property. In the best style of the ‘paterfamilias’ of Roman law, he is the one who decides who lives and who dies, and if it is considered that he is expelled from that family, he decides that that family has to disappear and he does so.
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