Andrea Becerril
Newspaper La Jornada
Saturday March 11, 2023, p. eleven
The reform on vicarious violence, recently approved in the Senate, must also be endorsed in the Chamber of Deputies, because it is urgent to stop the attacks against children carried out by partners or ex-partners in order to hurt women, commented the senator from Morena, Olga Sanchez Cordero.
President of the Senate Justice Commission, explained that during the debate, both in committees and in plenary, last Tuesday, there was resistance from some male legislators, who wanted men to also be considered victims of this type of violence, when in reality there are very few cases, since in the vast majority it is women who are harmed through their children.
The retired minister recalled that the term vicarious violence
It was coined in Spain, from the case of a girl and her young daughter, constantly attacked by her ex-husband, who was very violent.
She notified the judicial authorities and since the attacks did not stop, she asked that the father’s visits to the little girl be supervised, but the Spanish authority ignored them; the man killed the minor and then committed suicide
.
That is to say, he did not mind killing his own daughter, or losing his life, as long as he caused immense pain to the mother.
Senator Sánchez Cordero explained that this has nothing to do with parental alienation, as some senators argued; that is, with behaviors carried out by the father or mother who has custody of the children and that are aimed at preventing visits or turning the minors against one of them.
Vicarious violence, which in the opinion was called violence by an intermediary person, seeks to hurt women by separating them from their children or with direct aggression against minors.
Therefore, it must be considered a type of gender violence and punished as such, regardless of the other crimes in which the aggressor may incur.
There are cases, he added, in which the aggressor uses influence, economic or political power, to prevent the woman from seeing her children for years.
Despite the resistance of some senators, the reform of the Law on Women’s Access to a Life Free of Violence, the Federal Penal Code and the Civil Code, was approved unanimously and is in the Chamber of Deputies to be ruled.
