Every year, to mark this occasion, the Government of Catalonia, the Provincial Councils of Barcelona, Girona, Lleida and Tarragona, Barcelona City Council, the Federation of Municipalities of Catalonia, the Catalan Association of Municipalities and the Spanish Government Delegation in Catalonia agree on a manifesto to mark this date and everything it represents.
This year’s manifesto calls for daily efforts in the fight for a life free of gender violence, placing an emphasis on the forms of violence set out in Act 17/2020, of 22 December, amending and extending Act 5/2008, of 24 April, on the right of women to eradicate gender violence:
- Obstetric violence and violation of sexual and reproductive rights.
- Secondary violence, against people providing support for victims of gender violence.
- Vicarious violence.
- Digital violence.
The aforementioned amendment to the law also recognises various spheres where gender violence occurs: violence in the sphere of women’s political and public life, and violence in the institutional sphere.
Finally, the manifesto highlights the impact and indignation caused by sexual violence: “Here, on 25 November, we want to reiterate our support and empathy for survivors and those around them. We can’t continue to allow women to live in fear, with their freedom curbed by the threat of sexual aggressions which should already be cast out from a democratic and free society. Sexual violence is an attack on the principal of individual freedom”.
An institutional ceremony will take place in Plaça de Sant Jaume on 25 November, at 11.55 am, to mark the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women. The ceremony starts with a minute’s silence in memory of the women murdered through sexist violence, followed by a reading of the manifesto by the lawyer and activist Laia Serra, and concluding with a music and theatre show by La Cicatriz.
A date for standing up and for remembering
25 November was declared International Day for the Elimination of Violence towards Women during the Latin American and Caribbean Feminist Encounter held in Bogotá (Colombia) in 1981.
The women taking part in the meeting denounced gender violence in the domestic sphere and rape and sexual harassment at a government level, including the torture and abuse suffered by many political prisoners.
The date was chosen to mark the violent assassination of Minerva, Patria and Maria Teresa Mirabal, three political activist sisters murdered by the secret police of the Dominican Republic dictator Rafael Trujillo when they were their way to Puerto Plata to visit their imprisoned husbands on 25 November 1960. Their mangled bodies appeared in a mountain gully.
Adela (‘Dedé’) Mirabal was the only sister to survive, dying in Belgium in 2014 at the age of 88. These women have historically symbolised struggle and resistance for the popular feminist movement in the Dominican Republic. The UN made the date official in 1999.
