Eliminate violence against women, a rights issue

"It hurts and offends me that where should be safer for women, home, suffer the greatest abuse. Unfortunately Mexico is a country with macho culture." He said the president of Mexico, Felipe Calderón, commemorating the International Day to Eliminate Violence against Women. The fact that only in the Federal District, have been killed over a hundred women from January to September this year, agrees with the president. But, not only in Mexico.

All studies to date conclude that the mistreatment and murder of women by partners or former partners are a universal problem that does not distinguish nationalities, cultures, cultural or economic status. For example, countries with higher relative number of murders of women by their partners or former partners are among the most civilized and developed Europe: Finland and Sweden.

In Latin America, the problem is also severe. In Costa Rica, from 1990 to 1999, 184 women were killed, in El Salvador, according to the National Civil Police, in this 2007 228 women were killed violently, and last year, 421; in Guatemala, more than 200 in 2005 ; as Argentina Solidarity Network, in this country have been killed this year 100 women and one in five couples, the man abuses the woman ...

Beyond the numbers, while one woman is beaten or murdered by those who say love, for whom he lives or lived with it, we have a serious problem to solve.

What happens when women migrate to developed countries to escape poverty, because they want and are entitled to get better? In the developed world are again the problem of abuse, violent death.

According to a recent report by Amnesty International in Spain, immigrant women are much more helpless than the native to male violence. We chose this country because there has researched the problem. The difficult access to information to protect themselves as well as economic dependence on their partners, plus the difficulty of the language, though that is not the case of Latin America-most vulnerable are women who have emigrated.

According to this NGO, the number of immigrant women killed by their partners or former partners is six times higher than the Spanish. When Amnesty International concluded the report, 65 women were killed, of which 24 were migrants. In subsequent weeks, until 28 November, over 14 women died violently, of which five were migrants.

According to the General Council of Judicial Power of Spain, in 2006, one in four cases of women killed by male violence, victim and perpetrator were immigrants.

The relevance of the increase of immigrant women as victims of domestic violence, is perhaps due to men migrating as couples, boyfriends or husbands are more macho than the natives of the country? This belief is probably part of undocumented beliefs, but without discarding it (there is the statement by President of Mexico), the investigation is that immigrant women, as such, are more vulnerable, and that the decline of immigrant women as victims of male violence is to come because they have greater access to information, knowledge of organizations that support and can help to better position the state officials ... The support and assistance to immigrant women at risk of male violence is not funny but by granting recognition of the rights they have, in your country, here or wherever they go.

And as far as possible specific machismo of his executioners, being from somewhere else, other cultures and traditions make it clear that, contrary to traditions and cultures, prevail without discussion of human rights, universal declaration of which, incidentally, has been signed and ratified by most states in the world. And that is worthless and empty rhetoric. Because these rights are not proprietary or owned by any nation or culture. These include the right to life, right to the integrity and the right to freedom from abuse and not to be tortured. That is precisely what we are writing.

Xavier Cano

Writer and journalist

ccs@solidarios.org.es