On gender violence: Let us be fair to the law

Let us be fair to the law: The recent acts of gender violence that have shocked the country force us to reflect on the presence of this phenomenon in our society and what appears to be an insufficient and untimely response from the Ecuadorian state.

Just a year ago, the Comprehensive Organic Law to Prevent and Eradicate Violence Against Women was enacted amidst an infertile debate on so-called gender ideology, which ended up uncomfortable for political actors, making the execution of preventive measures inconvenient — those whose timely implementation we now painfully note were so lacking.

Among these preventive measures, the law established the implementation of the National Comprehensive System to Prevent and Eradicate Violence Against Women, and the National Observatory on Violence Against Women, which were supposed to maintain a unique georeferenced registry of violence against women and a guiding expenditure classifier, as tools to avoid and prevent violence and apply gender equality policies in public finances. None of this seems to have worked; in fact, few know of their existence.

The Comprehensive Organic Law to Prevent and Eradicate Violence Against Women defines gender-based violence against women as "any action or conduct based on their gender that causes or not death, harm and/or physical, sexual, psychological, economic, patrimonial, gynecological-obstetric suffering to women, both in the public and private spheres."

However, the interest of the Ecuadorian state in solving this problem is not new, nor is the intention to do so through the legislature and the administration of justice. Thus, the triple dimension of the Ecuadorian state was set in motion, promoting from the Executive an initiative developed by the Legislative Branch that should have been executed by the Judicial Branch.

Much time has passed since that legislation that excused the husband who killed his wife when she was found in adultery, through the Women's Commissariats and their bail orders, to the Judicial Units for Violence Against Women, Family, Children and Adolescents and protective measures.

Unfortunately, there are many problems that still afflict our society, among the main ones: corruption, deep deficiencies in the educational system, the so harmful political populism, and rampant deinstitutionalization, which leads to the implementation of pseudo-solutions only when media scandals occur, which naturally produces no results backed by statistics, technique, or science.

At this point, it is worth asking whether it is fair to demand that the law alone solve such a diverse and profound problem, particularly when a part of contemporary criminal doctrine has even proposed the abolition of criminal law, precisely because it has not been the response society expected, but rather — and often — the origin of a new injustice.

Could it be that the administration of justice will provide a sufficient response to gender violence? In my humble opinion, this is impossible; consequently, it is time for our demands to be directed at the political class to seek other multidisciplinary alternatives in which the law is part of the solution, not the only path.

Personally, I suggest that the State — in addition to the legal measures that seek equality — return the teaching of values to the curriculum, take care of the content of cultural expressions on radio, television, and non-conventional media, and remember that the core of society is and always will be the family.