Spain PM decries domestic violence surge after five women killed in a week

Agence France-Presse in Madrid
Mon 24 May 2021 16.47 BST

The Spanish prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, has denounced as “unacceptable” a surge in domestic violence in which five women were killed in the past week by their partners or ex-partners.

Among the victims was a 42-year-old Barcelona woman who was stabbed to death by her husband who then killed himself, and a pregnant Moroccan woman who was killed by her partner, who called police to confess.

Their deaths bring to 14 the number of women killed in Spain so far this year by their partner or former partner, and to 1,092 the total number killed since the government started keeping a tally in 2003.

“It is a hard reality, an unacceptable reality,” Sanchez said, denouncing the “cruelty” of the five deaths. “Spain unfortunately suffers a misogynist scourge, which means there are men who kill women for being women.

“We can’t look the other way while day after day these murders happen, we must not feel oblivious to pain and fear felt by thousands of women in our country.”

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