The Assembly of the Republic today approved two votes of condolence for the victims of domestic violence who died last year, one presented by the PS party and approved unanimously, and the other by Chega, approved by majority.

The vote put forward by the PS expresses “the most vehement rejection of all forms and acts of domestic violence and violence against women”, and stresses that “domestic violence is a serious crime that causes irreparable damage to many lives and in some cases their loss.”

“It is a crime that mostly victimizes women, their agents being mainly men”, says the socialist party, which warns that “it should not be ignored, however, that the most recent statistical elements confirm a tendency for the number of male domestic violence victims increasing”.

The PS notes that this is a “cross-cutting issue with other countries in our civilizational context, and that even societies with high levels of equality maintain large numbers on the subject,” but notes that “Portugal was one of the first countries to ratify the Convention. Istanbul, approved by the Assembly of the Republic and ratified by the President of the Republic in 2013

Still, “the fact that this is a cross-sectional drama cannot but excuse us from recognizing the imperative to continue to seek answers that contribute to their more efficient prevention and repression.”

In this regard, the Socialist deputies point out that “Portugal has adopted a broad set of measures aimed at preventing and repressing domestic violence, both as regards the criminal law regime and the adoption of protection and assistance measures of the victims ”.

“Still, we must continue to go this way and do more, expressing the deepest regret for the lives that were lost in 2019 as a result of this serious crime, which is domestic violence,” they note in the text.

Chega’s vote of “the deepest condemnation of the continued occurrence” of these crimes and “the deepest regret for all the deaths” was approved, although the PS voted against, the abstention of PCP, ENP and Free and the favourable vote of the others.

The text, signed by Mr André Ventura, points out that “in a saga that seems endless, rare is the week when it is not the country facing another death at the hands of one of the greatest scourges of our time, domestic violence”.

In Portugal, 35 women victims of domestic violence died last year and Chega notes that “Portugal cannot continue to whistle sideways while every year, every month or every day continues, one after the other, emerging” cases.

From the deputy’s point of view, this paragraph should “make everyone ashamed as a society and more as political decision makers”.

For this reason, according to Ventura, “it is therefore urgent to provide the necessary legislative changes so that this problem can be more muscularly tackled”.

At the session today, two votes from Chega, one of repudiation for assaulting a doctor, when she was giving consultations at the hospital in Setúbal, which had the votes against the PS, BE, Livre and PAN, party that made a statement, were voted down.