“The law has not been approved. It is returned to Congress. Congratulations, Irene…”. This is how the PP spokesman in the Senate, Javier Maroto, boasted on July 19 about the vote that accepted an amendment (already voted in Congress) to the one known as law of only yes is yes, which has delayed its entry into force. Barely two weeks later, the wave of attacks on women who report having been pricked with syringes by strangers in places of leisure has pushed the party led by Alberto Núñez Feijóo to “demand a protocol of action and security” for the “for the social alarm” and that “chemical submission” be included in the State Pact against Gender Violence, whose renewal is scheduled for this year. But precisely the Organic Law of Comprehensive Guarantee of Sexual Freedom that the PP rejects already contemplates a tougher sentence in these cases.
The same amendment approved twice: the unexpected mess that delays the ‘only yes is yes’ law
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The coordinator of Social Policies of the PP in Congress, Marta González, has appeared this Wednesday before journalists to anticipate that her party will register a non-law proposal to “update” the State pact, something that all the parliamentary groups have already agreed ( except the extreme right) in November 2021 and which, by calendar, has to be done when parliamentary activity is reactivated in September. Last July 22, two weeks ago, all the autonomous communities of the PP supported the new pact at the Sectorial Conference on Equality.
González has assured that the PP is willing to include in this initiative specific measures on chemical submission in the face of the “great concern” that has been generated “throughout the Spanish geography” due to “the attacks that some women receive with syringes.” Of course, the leader of the PP has assured that “there is some doubt” that it is “a new method of chemical submission or simply a terrible way to instill fear and fear in women.”
However, the law of only yes is yes that his party rejects qualifies as “sexual aggression” the one “called ‘chemical submission’ or through the use of substances and psychotropic drugs that annul the victim’s will.” Something so far not contemplated expressly. In addition, “the gender-specific aggravating qualifying circumstance is introduced in these crimes.”
Thus, article 180 of the law, which will be definitively ratified by Congress this September, determines a sentence of up to 15 years in case of aggression with penetration and “when for the commission of these acts the author has annulled the will of the the victim supplying you with pharmaceuticals, drugs or any other natural or chemical substance suitable for this purpose”. For sexual assault without penetration, the penalty will be up to eight years.
Minister Irene Montero has come to the #Senate to make his final “great speech” on the day of final approval of his “Only yes is yes” law. Well, the law has not been approved. It is returned to Congress. Congratulations, Irene…
– Javier Maroto (@JavierMaroto) July 19, 2022
The rule also establishes that the use of “drugs, drugs or any other natural or chemical substance” for the submission of minors under 16 years of age will imply that the penalty (again, up to 15 years depending on the circumstances) is applied in its upper half. .
Marta González has also pointed out that “there has been no response from the ministries involved” after the chain of complaints in recent days. “Just a tweet from the Minister for Equality”, Irene Montero, she said. And she has added: “There is no response from the Interior or Health, which would have to establish an action protocol that gives a uniform response and restores security to young people.”
The “tweet” to which González refers is actually a thread of messages in which Montero explains that Equality has signed a protocol with the National Federation of Leisure and Entertainment Entrepreneurs precisely to try to avoid events like this and that they can be put in place the protocols for action in the event of an attack in the same place.
In recent days we have heard testimonies of women assaulted through chemical submission in bars, pubs and nightclubs.
Last week we signed an agreement with @spain_denoche so that nightlife places are also violet points??
– Irene Montero (@IreneMontero) August 1, 2022
Also last week an agreement was signed with the Ministry of Transport so that the so-called purple points arrive “at the stations, trains, airports and ports of the State”.
Energy saving, a danger for the “security of women”
Marta González has taken the opportunity to delve into the PP’s criticism of the royal decree law on energy savings approved by the Government last Monday and has assured that its content may pose “problems” related to “gender violence and specifically with sexual violence ”.
For González, there is “a derivative” of the decree “and that would imply that the cities, shops and streets were practically completely turned off at a certain time.” “This measure”, concluded the Galician leader, very close to Feijóo, “can have positive consequences from the point of view of energy saving, but it can have very negative ones in relation to women’s safety”. “The Government is not concerned, we have not seen him mention it,” she has settled.
González thus joins the thesis of Isabel Díaz Ayuso, who has attacked the Executive’s proposal for supposedly generating “insecurity”. But the royal decree law in no case mentions the need to turn off public street lighting, but rather the windows of stores that are closed or the lights of public buildings also when the workers have left the institutions.
Who did ask to limit public lighting at night was Alberto Núñez Feijóo. Another example of the balance that the PP is doing to criticize the Government while defending the saving measures promoted by the European Commission, which is chaired by a political ally, Ursula Von der Leyen, and not to disavow Ayuso, who advocated in a first moment by the refusal to the law of the administrations controlled by the right.
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