Domestic violence issue discussed by president of Senate with Spanish counterpart

The President of the Senate, Anca Dragu, during a teleconference on Thursday with the President of the Senate of the Kingdom of Spain, María Pilar Llop Cuenca, discussed her project regarding the fight against domestic violence and physical abuse facing women in Romania. "We have studied public policy models to protect women in society, and Spain is one of the European leaders when it comes to this issue. Unfortunately, things in Romania are changing too slowly considering the scale of the phenomenon. Only in the first half of last year, 5,500 cases of violence against women have been reported, but we know that in reality the number is much higher and women do not have easy access to state authorities to get protection," Dragu said, according to a press release of the Senate. Anca Dragu invited her Spanish counterpart and colleagues in the Spanish Parliament to strengthen the inter-parliamentary relationship by creating a bilingual working group aimed at transmitting good practices adopted by Spain in this field and coordinating legislative measures in a unitary package, aligned with European legislation and adjusted to the real situations reported in Romania, to real indicators of the phenomena out there. In her turn, the President of the Spanish Senate said that she encourages this initiative and supports the collaboration between the two parliaments, mentioning that politics is the one that must provide answers in combating this phenomenon. The two sides read and signed a joint statement to this effect. "The presidents of the Spanish and Romanian Senates have stated their firm commitment to continue their efforts to combat violence against women in all its manifestations, solidarity with the victims and their strongest condemnation of attitudes and acts of violence against women. Parliamentary assemblies must function in all public spaces, in order to eliminate stereotypes and gender-based prejudices," according to the same source. The event was attended by Manuel Cavero Gomez, Secretary General of the Spanish Senate, Manuel Larrotcha Parada Asistira, Spanish Ambassador to Romania, and Gabriela Dancau, Romanian Ambassador to the Kingdom of Spain. AGERPRES (RO - author: Sorinel Penes, editor: Florin Marin, EN - author: Cristina Zaharia, editor: Adina Panaitescu)