Measures to combat violence against women are approved in the Senate

He Senate took part in today’s session of measures aimed at addressing the issue of gender-based violence at the legislative level, calling on the Governor Pedro Pierluisi declare a state of emergency against gender-based violence and another launch of an investigation into the functioning of certain tools the state has to address the issue, such as the Office of the Ombudsman for Women, the Police and the Institute of Legal Sciences with its management from “monkfish sets”.

The resolution calling for a state of emergency was adopted by a vote against by Thomas Rivera Schatz, of The new progressive party and Joanne Rodríguez Veve, from Proyecto Dignidad. New progressives Keren Riquelme and Gregorio Matías abstained. The legislative inquiry was approved by William Villafañe and Rivera Schatz. Riquelme, Wanda Soto, Nitza Morán, Matías, Carmelo Ríos and Migdalia Padilla abstained.

This afternoon, the Senate also approved a measure creating a new commission that will be chaired by pro-independence María de Lourdes Santiago, who will serve as a watchdog for the Department of Education’s Special Education Program. Two measures were also approved regarding the increase of 0.81 cents in the cost of kilowatt / hour of energy: one to reject the increase and order the Department of Justice to investigate any illegality committed in the process of approving the increase and another initiates a similar inquiry, but in the Senate.

The PNP delegation voted against the two electricity measures.

The objections of Penepés senators Carmelo Ríos, Henry Neumann and William Villafañe revolved around the need to approve substantive projects and not to give rise to larger legislative investigations, starting from the “hurried” premise that crimes were committed and that language one of the measures alluded to possible “political strategies” carried out in the last four years to delay the alleged entry into force of electricity growth.

“I am concerned that this is the kind of investigation we will conduct when there is a conclusion,” Ríos said.

“I’m talking about premeditated actions, collusion and discussions in dark rooms … it’s a bad start. If we do things well, we will do them well, “said Neumann.

Senate President José Luis Dalmau Santiago said the increase approved on December 31 by the Energy Bureau is included in the fiscal plan approved by the last government.

Debate on gender violence

Senators Rodríguez Veve, Ana Irma Rivera Lassén, Santiago and Migdalia González engaged in their first parliamentary debate in the Senate chamber when they addressed both measures, the topic under discussion being violence against women.

On the one hand, Rodríguez Veve, of Proyecto Dignidad, objected to the desire to specialize in violence against women, saying that “widespread violence” should be addressed.

“I think it is our duty to fight violence against women, but I also think it is our duty to fight violence against men, against children, against young and old with the same fervor. In short, I think it is our duty to fight violence against all, “said Rodríguez Veve, reviewing a number of crimes that have taken place in recent days.

Rodríguez Veve recalled how on November 30 he asked the then-elected governor to declare an emergency against “widespread violence”.

“Regardless of gender or age. What we cannot allow is that some deaths are more outrageous than others, because we would create superior categories of human beings, and even less can we allow the fight against violence against women to be a vehicle to overcome vehicles unrelated to the goal of to protect everyone’s lives, ”said Rodríguez Veve, who criticized the fact that the explanatory memorandum explains the establishment of alliances with organizations.

“It does not specify which groups and organizations it refers to. This resolution cannot be a blank check for organizations and groups with ideological proposals that impede the implementation of measures that are truly effective in combating violence against women, ”she said.

Rivera Lassén answers

When she took her turn, Rivera Lassén insisted on the need, as she put it, for “surnames” to be placed on violence. “

“When it is not done, it is not recognized what violence is and its sources and origin are not identified,” he said. “We can’t destroy it and say that all violence is the same and that there is one in particular that kills women … just because they are women.”

Rivera Lassén recalled how, before the creation of Law 54 on Domestic Violence in 1989, men had an open letter to rape their wives “because it was their right,” he said. “There was no defense in favor of married women, who considered themselves the property of their husbands,” she said.

“And there was no way a wife could say she was raped by her husband because the man had rights to his property,” Rivera Lassén said. “If the violence is not given a family name, it is not recognized,” he insisted.

“That’s why it’s important to put a last name. We live in a country where it is only because we are women, including trans women, that we are objects, only because of possible violence. A violence related to what we build as feminine and masculine ”.

Mary of Lourdes Santiago

The pro-independence senator claimed that no one can deny that, today, the gender difference gives way to pay inequality and how at some point in the last century women could not vote “because they were women”.

“Until the other days, until 1976 … a woman could run an agency, but she could not go to the bank alone without her husband’s permission, because she could not be the administrator of the community property company,” she said. .

“The same thing happens with the different manifestations of violence. There is violence that is expressed about who we are victims or potential victims by the mere fact of being a woman, because all these inequalities over the decades and centuries have found their most perverse channel in the sense that some men have their chromosomes oblige them. and forces them to act violently. Not with their peers, not with women, “he said.

“The price is hundreds of dead women and thousands of injured women,” he insisted.

Santiago Negrón denied that the discussion is whether there are people who are superior, as Rodríguez Veve claimed and analyzed a series of cases in which women were killed on the island.

“There is gender-based violence and it is difficult to be a woman,” she said.

Santiago said he would vote in favor of the measures, but said the legislative responsibility must go beyond an investigation or a petition to the governor, and called on the legislature to legislate mechanisms to address the issue.

Migdalia González

The chair of the Women’s Affairs Committee said thousands of women are victims of gender-based violence each year in Puerto Rico.

It should not be a problem for this LA to recognize that there is a problem of discrimination against women that ends with the killing of women, “said González. “We cannot tell our daughters and granddaughters that they must live in a violent country,” he added.

“A legislative body made up of a majority of 14 women is a more sensitive, empathetic body with victims of gender-based violence,” he said.