On April 30, 2022, a lonja from Atxuri’s Bilbaíno neighborhood caught fire inside a woman and her 2-year-old daughter. Doribel was admitted 54 days to the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) of the Cruces Hospital. He suffered deep burns in 18% of his body, including his face. Aitor B. He had visits from his partner S. until a sister of Doribel, to which we will call A, denounced the case of gender violence, activated the hospital protocol and the defendant has been in prison provisional.En the trial held in
Bilbao from 22 to 27 May, the Prosecutor’s Office and five other accusations (particular, Bilbao City Hall, Asociación Clara Campoamor, Community of the owners of the Imprisonment of up to 29 years for attempted murder and damage to the premises of more than 90,000 euros. Both the accident and suicide have been ruled out by the forensic report. The latter is the one the defendant has defended, that is, that Doribel ignited the fire with the intention of committing suicide. The forentsees take it for granted that the injuries coincide with an attempted murder in which the victim that the aggressor would mock with a stimulant substance was lying in bed and burned. The
EH Feminist-Nika association (formed by immigrants and refugees from Nicaragua) has collaborated with its compatriot Doribel in the complaint and recovery process and ordered a concentration on May 23 to seek redress. Norma Vázquez, director of the consulting firm specialized in male violence Sortzen, took the microphone: “Doribel is physically, psychologically and emotionally impaired. She will not be able to work in adequate conditions to comply with the migratory project she brought here,” said the feminist psychologist. The attack has left, among other things, severe pain, depression and post-traumatic stress disorder. Facial distortion due to burns and surgical interventions, in addition to psychological damage, has limited the possibilities of return to the market laboral.La defense impregnated by misogynistic and racist stereotypes was emphasized in concentration by
Norma
Vázquez, that the feminicide attempt was not an isolated fact, but the climax of a spiral of violence: “We know that this man took advantage of Doribel’s extreme vulnerability and has a history of attacks on other migrant women.” In his statement, EH Feminists-Nika stated that the defendants “systematically manipulated, controlled and threatened” the victim during four months of coexistence. The newspaper El Correo has published what the private accusation added in the trial: Aitor assumed “cards, mobile phones and social networks; he threatened to record and broadcast sexual intercourse and gave him more medication than he needed.”
However, Doribel was not the only victim. According to EH Feminist-Nika, Aitor willingly hit his other sister, N. This case is awaiting trial. Activist Silvia Zuniga brings Doribel’s testimony: “Aitor persuaded N. to go to N.’s work together to reclaim money owed to him by N. While waiting in a place where there were no cameras or witnesses, he said: ‘We’re scared.’ The capture left serious complications for N., who has had to undergo surgery several times and has been in rehabilitation for two years.” The emergency services treated him as an accident until he woke up to N. and denounced the attack.
Vazquez adds that Aitor's intention was to engage in an attack on Doribel N., in order to break the relationship between the sisters as a strategy to isolate the victim from his affection network. Doribel was so upset by the violent reaction of her partner who bought airline tickets with her daughter to return to Nicaragua. As is often the case, it was then when the feminicide attempt, five days before the trip, showed the victim’s will to marcharse.La defendant’s defense has focused on belittling the victim, presenting
a portrait full of misogynistic and racist stereotypes, including references to his sexual life: “Aitor tries to present her as a prostitute, drug addict, problematic, conflictive woman. He says that his only sin has been to fall in love with a woman with so much pain,” Vázquez explained at the press conference. The director of Sortzen stressed that the physical and psychological consequences suffered by Doribel must be added to “the terrible damage caused by attacks on her honour”.The protocols protect the migrated victims Some of Aitor’s former partners B.S. They testified at the trial, at the charge ' s request, that the relationship had also been terminated because of ill-treatment and
harassment.
Three of the last four sentimental people Aitor has had were migrant women. Vázquez observes a typical trend in this data: “That Machian white men bind with migrant women in a situation of exclusion.” The defendant is presented as a political scientist and has been Tertulian from Telebilbao. It was listed as a militant of the Party Popular.Los activists who have denounced that the situation of victims of male violence is aggravated when “gender-based violence is combined with racism and the realities that a migrant woman lives in this territory.” While Doribel was in the ICU, his sister
A. tried twice to file a complaint against Aitor at the Zabalburu police station. The police refused on the grounds that it was not a direct victim, although gender violence can be reported ex officio. Zuniga accuses the “misogynistic and racist prejudices” of the attitude of the Ertzaines of “the lack of credibility they give to migrated women”. The Nicaraguan feminists warn in their statement that many of the victims of femicide have not received support when they have tried to report.Zuniga
himself helped A. to another police station, to the Deusto district, on the recommendation of Sortzen: “The case instructor and the rest of the Ertzaines did a very different job, it is evident that they are trained in male violence. His strong assertions have served to turn the case over and regard it as gender-based violence. Therefore, I have learned that not all police stations are safe.” The
second institutional abandonment denounced by the Nicaraguan feminists in their communiqué concerns the care of Doríbel's daughter: “The victim is vicarious because he saw the attack and has been separated from his mother. But he has not been granted recognition of the victim, as legally provided, nor has the psychological damage caused to him been taken into account. Moreover, instead of prioritizing their emotional well-being, they have separated him from the family network, even though he was willing to take care of him,” they criticized in the comunicado.De made, although the municipal emergency services prevented
Aitor from staying with the child, the Provincial Council of Bizkaia took over the guardianship until his mother managed to be admitted as a host family. It was not easy, as the precariousness came back into play: “Amama had to obtain a housing that fulfilled the conditions to
be a host house, but did not have the necessary resources and the institutions did not make housing easier for him”, explains Zuniga.El the third obstacle denounced is that, in fact, the institutions “have not contributed to coping with structural problems that have a lot to do with intersectionality: housing, standards, work and health care”. Doribel moved from Cruces Hospital to a shelter for women victims of gender-based violence, but no recourse has been offered to her family members.
N., the sister accused of hitting the aggressor with the car, has not received protection for being a vicarious victim: “We asked the lawyer if it was possible to prosecute her feminiciated complaint as a single case, but they told us no,” Vazquez explains. After two years incapable of working, their situation is increasing precaria.Son
more relatives than Sortzen and the Feminist of Nicaragua have claimed as vicarious victims: A. migrated to Bizkaia to take care of his sister and had no place to live and no income. “We have asked for help from municipalities so that, for humanitarian reasons, they can apply for urgent aid for registration, but they have hindered us and not for solutions.” As a result, the children of the sisters also run out of a food supply in Nicaragua.
Vázquez regrets the lack of institutional involvement: “They have failed to comply with the obligations imposed by the autonomous law: they have not held a single institutional meeting or adopted measures to support the vicarious victims. We touched all the doors to create a special commission. They accepted the gravity of the case and showed their support. On the contrary, tell you “tomorrow we call you” and we continue to wait for the call.” In the absence of public solutions, entrepreneurs organized crowdfunding to help the family pay their expenses. “Feminist solidarity is fine, but victims have rights. Although the ruling is favorable to Doríbel, justice will not be done until the institutions comply with their obligations”, concludes
Sortzen.Pending the judgment, Zuniga expresses his frustration and inability: “Faced with male violence, victims and activists must face not only the painful and violent events that we have experienced, but also the institutional responses that humanity denies us. They are in charge of exerting social pressure so that they do not forget what happened.”
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