Fiona Govan
THOUSANDS of people took to the streets in demonstrations on Thursday evening to demand an end to violence against women.
November 25 marked International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women and saw demonstrations in cities across Spain.
In Madrid people marched in a sea of purple from Cibeles to Puerta del Sol. City Hall was lit up in purple for the event.
Similar scenes took place in Barcelona, Valencia and Sevilla.
Representatives from all of Spain’s main political parties, apart from the far-right Vox, renewed an agreement to guarantee funding for programmes to combat violence against women.
“Violence against women is a matter of state, the fight for the freedom of all women is a matter of state,” said Equality Minister Irene Montero.
The protests came less than a week after Spain’s government strengthened their commitment to combat gender violence by broadening the definition of ‘gender violence crimes’.
It will now include all the killings of women by men which until now only included those crimes committed by men against women they were in, or had been in a relationship with.
This year has also seen the tightening of sexual violence laws to define all non-consensual sex as rape under a law reform dubbed ‘only yes means yes’.
The official count shows 1,118 women who have died from gender violence since 2003, according to the Ministry of Equality.
So far this year, 37 women have been killed compared to 46 a year earlier.
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