Women who migrated due to gender violence: “My husband held a gun to my head when I was pregnant”

Her husband is a police officer in El Salvador. Y Two of his four children are his fruit. violations. When she locked him in the house, there was only one thing he could do: read. “Then I realized that I had to flee I didn’t want that life either for myself or for my children”. Some of her friends helped her buy tickets to Spain, and she came alone; a year later she managed to persuade her husband to bring the children. She continues to receive it to this day. Messages from the abuser: if he finds it he will kill it.

Comfort She received the worst beating from her husband the day she reported her husband.. The Colombian Institute of Women assured her that they would notify her so that she could leave, but they did not go. The role came, the two of them under the same roof. Days later, she put her three daughters’ belongings in garbage bags and ran away.

four months on the run

From 2013 to 2018, he changed his home in Colombia because the father of his children wanted to kill him. The abuser found her every four months, and the woman ran away againthreatened with death. He explains that he has made many complaints but none of them have been successful. “He would call me and say, ‘Look at the money your paper cost me.

She met him when she was 17 and He had two daughters with him. “Then I decided I wanted to break up with him and he forced me to have someone else.“, to remember. The third daughter survived the rape and they locked her in the house. “I can no longer go anywhere without permission, He took all my credit cards and money.I was barely making my way to the park, she cut off contact with all my friends and even my family,” recalls Consuelo. Later she began to belittle her. “She told me that I was worthless, that no one would want anyone. with three children who are not his own”.

As the tears run down her cheeks, she tells everything powerfully and tells that it has come to such a point that “I just wanted to dig a hole in the floor and get in.“Until she started going to a psychologist, hiding from her husband for herself and her daughters. And she ran away.

“Finally you don’t trust”

She went to the Colombian Women’s Institute many times and none of them helped her. “I was going to go back to see how my case was going, but they literally opened the file, no one remembers anything. Why will I report? To come to my house and beat me and my girls? In the end, you don’t trust Justice,” says Consuelo.

Yasmina and Consuelo now live in the Community of Valencia and refugee for gender reasonsone of the main reasons why women, especially from Latin America, leave their country. They are running away from their husbands.

Both have international protection granted by Spain. This protection is only given to people who have fled their country and cannot return because their lives are in serious danger, and it was first applied in 2009. People fleeing wars. Them fled countries with war against women.

State against women

this violence against women appears in many fields. “Violence can be domestic, domestic, forced marriage, female genital mutilation, non-compliance with country regulations (such as lifting the veil), or in the case of the Central Bank,” says Pilar Albero, a lawyer specializing in international protection and gender-based violence. America, victims of trafficking and sexual violence by organized crime by gangs”.

this sexism the state can be, by negligence or by direct action where the Administration, such as Consuelo, does not protect women and leaves them helpless. Institutional violence. This is the case of an Argentine woman who recently took refuge in Spain. “She was a cop, but she was abused so much there that she had to run from the body so nothing could happen to her,” she explains.

Migration starts feminizing in 2015. The number of those who came before was very small compared to the number of men, and since then the scales are starting to balance because of this. “First of all, most of them are from Latin America because of cultural ties and because they can catch a plane and be in Manises, which is not something in Africa because they don’t issue visas,” explains the lawyer.

earthquake simulation

“One of the days she found me she was extremely violent and wanted to kill me. In the end, the neighbors helped and she couldn’t get through the door,” says the affected woman. “So when we escaped, I taught my girls what to do if an earthquake happened, we did a few drills. They had to run to the last room in the house and hide under the bed.. And the big take care of the little ones. They knew it was in case he came, and they rushed to the last room that day,” says Consuelo.

One of those times was key when he decided to travel to Spain. Travel, don’t emigrate. “I came to spend my last vacation with my girls because I knew coming back would kill me.“, he says. But he was already tired of running, “he was determined to get up, it would be just him or me.”

the girl was silent

However, during a visit to a Spanish convent, the nuns advised him to go to the Red Cross, and there They talked about the possibility. Apply for international protection in Spain because of gender violence. She did it and now she has refugee status in our country like her four daughters. She is working and her eldest daughter is also; medium and small ones are still finishing their education. She knows she can’t go back to her country, but she finally finds something resembling happiness.

He explains that to this day he still has nightmares and cannot sleep. Both himself and his three daughters. “When we started meeting with the Red Cross, I understood everything my daughters went through and what I didn’t know. Tell me because she was afraid she would complain and then she hit me”.