74 / 84
Guest-column
By: Antonio Escudero
Manager of Corporate Safety
and General Services
“It is necessary for
society to change its
vision on gender relations.
The change must be
driven by various sectors;
certainly from the penal
system but also from an
educational perspective.
We should start
addressing the issue with
the young generations: in
our homes, elementary
schools, and throughout
the educational period.
Gender violence:
from the criminal perspective
The United Nations defines violence against
women as any gender violence act that
results or could result in physical, sexual,
or psychological harm of women including
threats of such actions, coercion or the
arbitrary privation of liberty, in public as well
as in private life. To this, we can add men’s
conduct aimed at controlling women.
In its Unite to End Violence Against Women
campaign, the UN affirms that violence
against women is not limited to one specific
culture, region, or country or to particular
groups of women in society. The roots of
violence against women lie in the persistent
discrimination against women.
Impunity
From the criminal perspective, it has been
shown that in most violent crimes, the
delinquent and victim know each other
and that most often, these crimes take
place within the family. This is due to
several factors, including the context of
intimacy where these relations develop
outside the formal and informal control of
society. A situation of impunity is created in
this environment which is the reason why
this crime can extend over time in many
occasions until the most serious outcome:
homicide.
Submission
The key to submission could be the
fact that society has “tolerated” men’s
domination over women over the centuries.