The criminalization of vicarious violence advances, but its approval is at risk

The controversy is because some senators from Morena agreed with legislators from the Movimiento Ciudadano, Acción Nacional (PAN), the Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD) and the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) that violence can be exercised in reverse, that is –they warn– women also withhold or exert violence on other people in order to cause harm to their partner.

Senator Damián Zepeda, from Acción Nacional (PAN), requested a general wording in which “the person” remains as the victim of this violence by an intermediary person, since – he explained – it can be a man or a woman.

Although the reforms to the General Law on Women’s Access to a Life Free of Violence, the Federal Criminal Code and the Civil Code advanced, in a session of the United Commissions for Gender Equality and Legislative Studies of the Senate, it will be in plenary session of the Senate where the positions, votes and final wording are defined.

The Senate decided to call it “violence by an intermediary” and not assume it as “vicarious violence” as it is used in Spain. The ruling recognized that this violence is committed “through an intermediary, a modality that seeks to harm women through their daughters, sons and other relatives and close friends.”

Senator Malú Micher, from Morena, who chairs the first commission, said that the objective is to ensure the rights of women.

We do not deny – he pointed out – that sometimes men can be victims, but including them could be regressive in the Law that has protected women for 17 years.