The minister of equality, Irene Monteroand the Secretary of State for Equality, Angela Rodriguezannounced this Friday at the headquarters of the Presidency of the Government of the Canary Islands that the Equality Sectoral Conference has served to achieve unanimous agreement between the State and the autonomies to reinforce the policies against gender violence. Thus, the so-called Tenerife Agreement will serve, among other things, to finance defense, support and information programs for victims for periods of five years. It should be remembered that the existing projects until now could only count on budget support for one year.
In the opinion of Irene Montero and Ángela Rodríguez, this unity of action will allow reinforce the State Pact in this matter, which will be equated to those existing to support Education, Health, pensions or Social Services, for example, which have stability and continuity, to the extent that they are not questioned with the passage of different governments.
According to Montero, the Tenerife Agreement It will allow us an institutional message of absolute unity to deal with said social problem, by the State Government, the regional executives and the city councils. And, in the minister’s opinion, it will allow “to make public policies that allow us to prevent violence, detect it early, provide comprehensive care to victims and survivors, as well as guarantee their reparation a matter of State.”
The Sectoral Conference will have as a consequence the stabilization of the financing of the actions. “We want more of a state pact against gender violence, more public policies against vviolence towards women; we want the administrations as a whole to fight effectively,” said Montero.
The minister clarified that “we are very satisfied; it has been hard work for many months; this is not the end point, and this agreement gives us obligations and many tasks that we have to develop with intensity”.
Ángela Rodríguez cited several tools to achieve the stated objectives. The Sectorial Conference urges the Cortes Generales to renew the opinion of the State Pact. “We are establishing a cooperation framework between the State and the autonomous communities” which, from now on, will be the instrument through which gender-based violence policies will be developed, according to Rodríguez. Thus, the actions in this area will be applied in joint action plans that will last five years.
And, in addition, it will be necessary to design a catalog of references which are the policies, services and benefits to which victims of gender violence will be entitled, according to the Secretary of State for Equality. This document will allow consensus on a series of minimum actions, which will facilitate guidance to the regional governments for their respective projects.
