The governor of Puerto Rico, Pedro Pierluisi, has signed an executive order declaring a state of emergency in response to the increase in cases of gender violence.
“All violence is reprehensible, and we have to fight it relentlessly. Gender-based violence is a social evil, based on ignorance and attitudes that cannot have space or tolerance in the Puerto Rico that we aspire to,” said Pierluisi, according to the newspaper. ‘The new day’.
The text denounces that the “vulnerable victims” have suffered “systematic machismo, inequity, discrimination, lack of education, lack of guidance and above all lack of action.” “It is my duty and my commitment as governor to establish a stop to gender violence and for these purposes I have declared a state of emergency,” he explained.
The executive order includes the appointment of a compliance officer who will report to the governor to oversee and follow up on the application of the order.
In addition, it creates the Committee for the Prevention, Support, Rescue and Education of Gender Violence (PARE Committee) in which 17 members are appointed and increases to three the representation of organizations that are dedicated to providing services and fighting violence against women. gender.
Likewise, Pierluisi has ordered the creation of a mobile phone application that helps victims of gender violence to request emergency help by hiding the message sent to protect the victim from their aggressor.
According to official figures, Puerto Rico closed 2020 with 6,170 reported incidents of gender violence and eight women murdered. According to the Gender Equity Observatory, only last year 60 women were murdered if one considers the crimes under investigation, those that are pending autopsy and transfeminicides.
Last week the murder of the first woman victim of gender violence in 2021 was reported, nurse Angie Noemà González Santos, 29, who died at the hands of her husband, Roberto Félix RodrÃguez, with whom she had had three girls.
