The judicial process in the area of domestic violence

The Judicial Process in the Area of Domestic Violence: The Female Victims Experience Fátima Pérez Jiménez Ainoa Santander Romera WHERE WE START ¡ There is already some research about the judicial process created by the Organic Law 1/2004 on protection against genderbased violence that had shown the circunstances of its aplication ¡ The experiences of the women have prove to be inadequate in a grate number of occasions due to the experiences of secondary victimization WHERE WE GO ¡ It’s necessary to go deeper and know more details about the encounters between the female victims and the legal agencies ¡ The research must show where they present the major difficulties and where the system is working well The Female Victims’ Experience OBJECTIVES ¡ To explore and describe the experiences of fifteen women during the process of the criminal justice system ¡ To explain the particularities of the institutional treatment dispensed to the victims through the encounter with different legal agencies ¡ Make sugestions to address domestic violence through the criminal justice system METHOD ¡ Semi-structured interviews on the different steps within the judicial process carried out in the first months of 2016 ¡ Fifteen women between 30 and 63 years old ¡ Three of them were foreigners ¡ They were contacted through two NGOs that work in Málaga and Almería (Andalusia, Spain) RESULTS Police interactions: the initiation of the judicial process • Legal and institutional barriers • Police treatment Court interactions: secondary victimization • Information about the process • Elements of the process • Misunderstanding of the process and its results Initiation of the process: Legal and institutional barriers Fear of further violence and mistrust of the criminal justice system (W.12): now I know what’s happening with the police reports, the judges, the restraining ordes... It’s terrible!. I think that I’m one of the few who hasn’t gone to the police. There is a huge lack of legal protection Discouraging messages ¡ The police (W.8): with the first policeman I felt ridicoulous I wanted to give up because when I told him my story he said that they were the relationship problems that we all have, because my husband had’t battered me or the children ¡ The lawyers (W.1): the lawyer told me: he hasn’t battered you so I don’t know if it’s possible to do anything, I really don’t think so ¡ The judges (W.5): The judge was a former university colleague and she said to me: think carefully about it because of your daughter Previous refusal of protection (W.13): I can’t face him so the only way I have is the penal process, although they didn’t listen to me last time, I’m going to report to the police again and again because I can’t do anything else Initiation of the process: Legal and institutional barriers ü The organic law 1/2004 has been a positive step forward for the women victims of gender base violence protection ü But there is a need for further clarification of the experiences of these women with the judicial proceeding to be aware of the details about secondary victimisation ü We still see that in a great number of occasions women suffer because of the treatment that they receive during the judicial process or because it isn’t properly design to facilitate their protection The Judicial Process in the Area of Domestic Violence: The Female Victims Experience Fátima Pérez Jiménez ([email protected]) Ainoa Santander Romera