Virginia Cabrera She was originally blonde and now has dark hair. When she was 3 years old, she had 7 diopters. Now she is 50 years old and she is 27 years old. But the woman, who is 71 per cent visually impaired, can see clearer than ever after enduring two hellish episodes of abuse: “I’ve always felt insecure about perspective. Ever since I was a child. “The aggressors exploited our vulnerability and this got their attention.”
Victoria Russell, the government representative against gender-based violence, yesterday mentioned “special victims” who must be analysed; one of them are disabled women who rarely dare to talk about the fact that, in addition to the pain caused by their pathology, they also suffer from Partners experience pain together. Virginia expressed this loud and clear, but it took her nearly thirty years to do so. Together with Esther, Antonia, Lorey…, she is one of the 14 women who narrate their resurrection in the book “Voices of Courage” published by Inserta, an entity of the ONCE Foundation. They are women with various disabilities, attacked by specific “monsters”, and they unite to send a message: Gender-based violence shakes entire socioeconomic and cultural spheres. According to the 2019 Macro Survey on Violence against Women, 40.4% of women with disabilities Certified women had experienced some type of intimate partner violence, compared with 31.9% of healthy women.
disabled women
compared to 31.9% of healthy women who had experienced some type of intimate partner violence.
“When I hear things at work, like in nursing homes, about how we’re freeloaders and living on assistance, I just think it’s best that that doesn’t happen to you,” Virginia said.
her first husband He abused her physically, psychologically and verbally. And to his children. There are three of them. He was a soldier and he was expelled from the army, but she moved with him to Seville, San Fernando and Ceuta, where the lack of financial independence and poor coexistence eventually sank her. Do you help? He affirmed Caritas’s point of view. “I spent a few weeks in a foster home. He declared himself insolvent, I raised my children, and although the second of them lived with his father, he did not forget the pain he caused him.
After walking through the first circle of flames, Virginia thought she had fallen in love with another man. He moved to Toledo. On Christmas Day 2018, she drank and thought he was going to end things. He broke her nose, disfigured her face, and turned her upside down, “like a piece of cloth,” He pinned her against the wall, fists flying. Every year on December 25th, this scene becomes somatic. Her son said he had forgotten her now, and the man spent eight months in Ocaña prison, but Virginia insisted: “Are you a victim? You will always be like this. Every time Christmas comes around, things are terrible. ” What hurt her the most was seeing “he knew exactly where to hit her,” he was going to hit her on the forehead between the eyes, trying to make her blind for the rest of her days. » If the neighbor hadn’t warned us, That day will be the last day. I’m sure of that,” she told ABC.
What’s wrong
“You still want to know what went wrong?” he said with a growl of sorts, jabbing at the authorities.She detailed the faults of the system one by one: “Justice didn’t do its homework. They sentenced him, and they reduced it during COVID-19 because he was of good behavior. He had a restraining order, and the police surveillance on me was Lifted, he was prohibited from approaching me within a certain meter because he had access to the city where I lived. He did know where I was. They set him free and let him live his life, and arriveThe police suggested I dye my hair so they wouldn’t recognize me. I don’t blame the police, not everyone who is abused has an attorney, but I have received death threats. We victims felt isolated and many elements of the system failed. They did it wrong. ”
«I feared for my life. I received death threats. “I thought this man wanted to end my life.”
If you fear for your life, why are you condemning it so loudly? Previously, the dual status of disabled victims had trapped these women in silence and shame. Virginia replied: “I have become responsible. I think this person wants to end my life and the only service that can help me is Atenpro from the Red Cross, they call me from time to time to find out where I am and how I am doing . Another vulnerability? » What we victims need is a lot of psychological help. You go once and four months later they see you. You are devastated and no therapy can keep you that way You can only get rid of it through therapy. But I want to tell everyone that it came out, even if they saw it was black and it cost a lot, it came out. ”
With great courage, Virginia finally looked in the mirror. Because of his disability, “Until then” I had never done that. He feels like the “ugly duckling” in the story. She felt heavy from the beating and it was the only thing she didn’t want to do. But he forced himself to begin drawing a new Virginia from the reflection. It took a long time. “For months I had nothing to eat except the food they gave us at the soup kitchen because the second abuser never compensated me despite being convicted.”
Thanks to Inserta Empleo for her help in finding a job, I encourage getting a rental apartment through an agency. “I know now that there is no reason to tolerate a man humiliating you and making you feel inferior,” he says in the book, which will be published next Thursday in Toledo. You have to ask for help and one day you will see the light, even if you are broken into a thousand pieces. “I can’t stand the screaming anymore.”