“He does not know when he started checking her cell phone or when the jealousy became routine. What he remembers is the first time he hit her, and that that night he decided to go with his daughter to her mother’s house.” It is part of Treasure huntthe campaign against sexual violence launched by the Ministry of Equality on Monday for 25N and starring actress Esther Exposito. It tells a fictional case of indirect violence, written by Argentine author Hernan Casari, in which a father kidnaps his daughter with the aim of harming the mother and pressuring her to return to him.
The short film uses the eyes and voice of the Madrid artist – always in the foreground – to depict the cruelty of this type of violence in which abusers use a third party to cause their partner or ex-partner to suffer. Many other forms of sexual violence are also integrated into the story Ester Expósito tells, ranging from cyber control to physical and psychological abuse.
This campaign seeks to make society “aware and aware of the complexity of indirect violence, an extreme form of violence against women that requires widespread mobilization to prevent and detect it early,” Equality Minister Ana Redondo explained on Monday.
For her part, the government delegate to combat violence against women, Carmen Martinez Birza, highlighted that the saddest thing about the campaign is seeing how a boy or girl can be used as a tool to harm their mothers, causing severe suffering to both women and children, and the consequences of this are profound and lasting.
Martinez-Berza warned that violence is not seen in the ad, but is felt, and neither is the aggressor, “although his presence weighs on him all the time.” The delegate identified five aspects covered by the campaign: it makes indirect violence visible as a violation of the human rights of women and children, explains its devastating impact on daily life, helps identify warning signs, communicates available resources to victims, and reinforces strict social rejection of aggressors.
He stressed, “You can never find justification and complicit silence. As a society, we must say with one voice, loud and clear, that an abuser can never be a good father. (…) We as a society cannot look the other way. Every gesture is important, every call is important, anyone can call 016. Let’s protect the children, let’s protect the mothers.”
Since 2013, 65 children and adolescents have been killed by their parents, their mothers’ partners, or their ex-partners in crimes of sexual violence. The Ministry estimates that about 1,400 minors are at risk of being exposed to this violence.
Phone 016 helps victims of sexual violence, their families and those around them 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, in 53 different languages. The number is not registered on the phone bill, but the call must be deleted from the device. You can also contact via email016-online@igualdad.gob.esAnd via WhatsApp on 016 000 600. Minors can call the ANAR Foundation phone number 900 20 20 10. If it is an emergency, you can call 112 or the phone numbers of the National Police (091) and the Civil Guard (062). If you cannot connect, you can use the ALERTCOPS application, through which an alert signal is sent to the police with geolocation.