Women break their silence about the horrific organization that trapped and abused them during the Spanish dictatorship | Spain

Inmaculada Valderrama died at the age of 15. She is believed to have fallen from a third-floor window at the Women’s Correctional Institute in San Fernando de Henares, on the outskirts of Madrid. According to her official statement, she was attempting to escape from the facility. However, Our Lady of the Immaculate Conception was in her underwear, and the center door was already open at that time. On the same day, a demonstration was organized in the city, blaming the directors of the juvenile detention center (all Catholic evangelists) for the deaths of the boys and girls. It was September 19, 1983.

General Francisco Franco had died eight years earlier, but his dictatorship’s longest-running and most misogynistic institution, the Commission for the Protection of Women, survived him. This creature, unknown but terrifying, formed part of the mechanisms of a social control system focused on disciplining women’s bodies and minds. It was designed and applied by the leaders of the Catholic Church and regime. To do so, they relied on historical models such as the Royal Commission for the Suppression of White Slavery (1902).

Paradoxically, the Commission for the Protection of Women was established during Spain’s Second Republic (1931-1939) for a completely different purpose. This name was appropriated after the Nationalist Party came to power. The Franco regime destroyed it, effectively turning it into a “patriarchal prison network”. Within this system, members of the Catholic Church were given police functions.

“If you misbehave, you’ll be taken to a nun.” This was the threat made to thousands of women every day during the 36-year fascist dictatorship. The majority of them did not know what exactly the threat referred to: the much-feared nuns, convents, residences, etc. The Women’s Protection Committee was founded in 1941 with the purpose of “rescuing fallen women and helping those in danger of falling.” The woman who fell… why did she fall? What kind of abyss did they fall into? Was it a fall from heaven to hell? True, no one would have been able to answer in which place it was clearly only the woman who fell. But what was clear to everyone then and now is that the concept definitely referred to women engaged in prostitution, or simply women in control of their sexuality. This second type of her “fall” was very extensive. They ranged from smokers to protesters. These included women and girls who were disobedient or, in the worst cases, became pregnant out of wedlock. Women in these situations were deemed worthy of lifelong social punishment by government and religious authorities. Under Franco’s regime, they would be forced to put their children up for adoption. Infants were also often sold.

Spanish historian Carmen Guillén wrote a paper on the Committee for the Protection of Women. She explains how this system of social control was essential to ensuring the stability of the dictatorship. She said, “Women were responsible for transmitting values ​​to their offspring and, as a result, indoctrinating them. [Controlling women] was the top priority. ”

Inmaculada Valderrama’s death in 1983 had a back-and-forth impact on the survival of the Women’s Protection Committee. Just two years later, like other Francoist remnants, it disappeared without any compensation for its victims.

Most of the religious orders responsible for the confinement of thousands of women have not been convicted of any crime but continue to be involved in social welfare. Even Spain’s Democratic Memory Law, which came into force in 2022, does not consider female prisoners to be victims of the dictatorship. However, a small number of women born after the system disappeared are recovering the memories of survivors and bringing its cruel history to light. In fact, since last year, we’ve seen a surge in women breaking their silence through books, articles, roundtables, podcasts, and more on the subject.

madman

“On November 9, 1977, María Isabel died in a state of shock from burns in Basauri prison. The prostitutes working in the area, her colleagues, did not believe the official announcement and staged a strike. The feminist movement demanded that crimes that applied only to women be abolished. [feminist] The movement is abolished. LGBTQ [movements] Demanding the abolition of dangerous laws and reintegration into society, [which criminalized homosexuality]”

“43 years after her death, from our home… [less than 1,000 feet] I attempt to reconstruct a woman’s life from her last registered residence. [lady] He was always fighting to avoid being killed. Someone once said that such people leave no trace. Now it turns out they were completely wrong. ”

In 2022, 35-year-old Andrea Momoitio published the story of María Isabel Gutierrez Velasco under the title Lunática. Momotio is a journalist who investigated the story of this woman who lived on the margins of society due to the mechanisms of patriarchal oppression that flourished during the dictatorship. Others are also working on this research.

Erica Santillan – After Reading Lunatica Two years ago, I wrote this message on Twitter: “Thank you for bringing me closer to the unknown, but most of all, thank you for bringing me closer to my grandmother.” We both know that this is Isabel Cadenas Cañon Little did I know it would be the beginning of a friendship that would lead to me working with Erica to create a podcast called Lunatics about the search for Erica’s grandmother, Lori.

Momotio’s book evoked memories for Erika. The story reminded her of an unfinished conversation from decades ago. In the process, her mother was told that her grandmother was wanted by the state and that she did not have a national ID card.

Isabel Cadenas Cañon, 42, has spent years considering the various material elements that represent memory.The title of her doctoral thesis is Poetics of Absence: Subversive Forms of Memory in Contemporary Visual Culture. Her interest led her to create “We Don’t Talk About That”, one of the most acclaimed podcasts in Spain. In it, she weaves together anecdotes from recent and not-so-recent history. She dedicated two episodes to two survivors of the Committee for the Protection of Women, showing how the committee survived ten years after the return to democracy. In her episode “Lost” she composed it as if it were an old cassette tape. “Side A” is the story of Consuelo García del Cid (black and white), which takes place during the Franco regime, and “Side B” is that of “Dolores” (color) after the return to democracy. .

Consuelo García del Cid: Pioneer

“Here we will let everyone know what they did to us.” This is how Consuelo, who had been imprisoned for two years without committing any crime, returned to his house of correction, 52 Padre Damián Street. This was the promise I made when I said goodbye to my classmates at the Adoratorices de Madrid. She broke her silence in correctional facilities just under 20 years ago. As Isabel Cadenas’ voice tells us, it was initially difficult for Consuelo to investigate this institution. Because, in her own words, “ [lack of documents] There is also an information gap. ” But that didn’t stop her. She needed to fulfill a promise she had made in her adolescence. So she began searching for her former prison mates, interviewing them and asking for materials. Then she told her own experiences and the results of her research on television. Thanks to her appearance, new testimonies about her began to emerge.

Consuelo was dedicated to documenting everything. Eve’s exiled daughters, Rebels of the Committee for the Protection of Women and please pray for us These are some of the works that serve as essential references for Spanish researchers investigating this topic in detail. In her own words, “Democracy has forgotten about us, and it is the atrocities committed against minors, who are subject to virginity tests in addition to other punishments and labor.” And it’s no use saying, “That’s exactly what happened in Spain.” That prison system for minors was undeniably brutal. ”

not appropriate

“Cello Alfonso was one of the many young pregnant women who passed through the Santo Cello River.” [reformatory]. She got pregnant when she was 14 years old, and when she told her aunt about it, her reaction was: [terrible]. Her two men loaded her into her car and she was taken to the Oblate Reform School in Valencia. When her contractions began, she entered the La Cigueña clinic under a false name… due to general anesthesia, Cello didn’t remember the slightest bit about her birth. She woke up crying and asked about her son. She was not able to meet the newborn.There’s no time to recover [the trauma], they locked her up in the Adratrices de Valencia reform school. ”

This is just one of the many horror stories Marta García Carbonell and María Palau Gardón have collected in their book. These two journalists first heard about the Committee for the Protection of Women when they were preparing a report on the women’s prison at the Convent of Santa Clara in Valencia. And from the moment they learned of its existence, they dedicated their lives to discovering and explaining how this prison and patriarchal framework worked. Just a year after that discovery, they won a major Spanish research scholarship in journalism. Because of this, they saw the fruits of their efforts published. The worthless daughters of the motherland. In a book filled with maps and photographs, they also point out the spaces and religious orders that were part of this punitive network.

The main article in this field of research, Patronage for the Protection of Women: Prostitution, Morality, and State Intervention in the Franco Era, was published by 36-year-old historian Carmen Guillén and was published by the 36-year-old historian Analyzing parallel relationships. The social control model implemented by Spanish and Italian fascism. “[Asylum-like] The center was used not only by women with mental health problems, but also by women who did not fit into the prescribed model of womanhood. ”

granddaughter’s generation

Many of these researchers organize roundtable discussions, some of which are promoted by the Spanish Women’s Association. These events always include survivors in the audience. One of these women’s girlfriends is Ms. Pilar Dashi. After she was released from her captivity decades ago, she initially said nothing about the Women’s Protection Committee.

These spaces raise questions about how we communicate this experience. Many of the women who passed through these religious centers were unaware that they were being held in a particular facility. At the time, few people had even heard of the board. Therefore, they fear that many other women do not see themselves as victims of the same organization.

Regardless, we are witnessing the reparative will of a generation of granddaughters who, while recognizing the androcentric bias that pervades historical narratives, are determined to include the women who came before them. Some of them are biological, some of them are metaphorical. They believe that by doing this, they are participating in the process.

Author Begoña Méndez writes in Autoscience Fiction for the End of the Species: What traces of my future do their presence contain? My grandmother left me a blank piece of paper. ” These questions are the impetus to finally break the silence that has been inherited by us.

Apply our weekly newsletter Get more news coverage in English from EL PAÍS USA Edition