Gender violence and rape in Francoist Spain and the democratic transition
Regular Nationalist soldiers engaged in similar patterns of rape, torture and murder in places like Maials, Callus and Cantalpino.
In 1987, Spain's Supreme Court ruled that rape victims did not need to prove they actively fought off their rapist to lodge a complaint.
Historical memory laws in Spain have resulted in more attention about to the violence faced by women during the Spanish Civil War and the Francoist period.
Repression against women by Nationalist forces has been difficult to understand as historians have traditionally been obsessed with quantifying the number dead, imprisoned and wounded.
Civil Guard corporal Juan Vadillo and Falangist Fernando Zamacola were both decorated by Nationalists forces after they raped women in Benamahoma.
[18][25] This practice of using Moroccan Foreign Legion members to rape local women was a carryover from Spanish military actions in their colonial possessions.
[5][23] Foreign Affairs magazine in October 1942 said of Francoist commanders, "They never denied that they had promised white women to the Moors when they entered Madrid.
Sevillian homosexual Falangist Andrés Díaz murdered his pregnant ex-wife Ana Lineros while she was giving birth, having taken her from jail and shaving her first.
[16] In a case in Torre Alháquime, when there was a leadership in Falange, the incoming boss wrote an internal report that accused the outgoing leader as drunk, rapist and extortionist.
[5][6] Queipo de Llano had a radio program, where he said of the mass rape which occurred in Seville, "Our brave legionaries and regulars have taught the cowards of the reds what it means to be a man.
On his radio show, he said of Dolores Ibárruri "The famous Pasionaria has taken it with me because she does not realize that I admire her, for having managed to ascend from virgin of 30 reals to the first figure of the regime.
"[27] Rafael Alberti wrote a poem that was read of Nationalist radio by Queipo de Llano that said, "Tonight I take Malaga, / on Monday, I took Jerez, / Montilla and Cazalla Tuesday, / Wednesday, Chinchón, and on Thursday, / drunk and in the morning, / all the stables / Madrid, all the blocks, / mullendo cagajones, / they will give me their soft bed./ Oh, what a treat sleeping / taking for a pillow / and at the reach of the snout / two cribs of alfalfa.
/ I'll be in Madrid tomorrow, / that the schools close, / that the taverns open, / nothing of Universities, / of Institutes, nothing, nothing, / that the wine runs to the meeting / of a liberator of Spain.
[28] When men returned home from the front lives of the Civil War, culture dictated they had a certain sexual freedom that women were denied.
Voluntary dependency, the offering of every minute, every desire and illusion is the most beautiful thing, because it implies the cleaning away of all the bad germs -- vanity, selfishness, frivolity -- by love.
This was compounded by the fact that many victims were not highly educated and lacked the personal confidence to undergo a humiliating experience of reporting the act to the police who were often suspect of their claims or who would take the side of the rapist by default.
[35] One woman, who described herself as a wretched wife whose husband beat her in front of her 10-year-old daughter, was told to, "Be brave, do not neglect your personal arrangement for a moment.
Elena Francis told this woman to confess, as she was partly to blame as she had sinned and encouraged her to continue to living in the home where the violation took place.
[47][3] Notorious for its human rights violations, baby abductions, and brutality, the Board targeted girls and young women, confining them in reformatories as part of the broader Francoist repression.
[48][49][1][50] During the Francoist period, this institution had closed internment centers, generally run by Catholic religious orders, which could confine girls and young women deemed 'fallen or at risk of falling', even without having committed any crime.
[9] One alleged incident took place in 1975 involving an 18-year-old girl name Rosa García Alcón who belonged to the Spanish Democratic University Federation (FUDE), Revolutionary Antifascist and Patriotic Front (FRAP).
She went on to say, "One night they took me out in a car, Billy the Kid and three other police officers were saying that they were going to show me a safe house they had located, and they threatened me saying that they were going to take me to the Casa de Campo, to rape and leave me out there, that my family would never know about me again.[...]
[55] In 1974, the Municipal Court Number 19 in Madrid sentenced González Pacheco single day in prison and fined him 1,000 pesetas for abuse by Enrique Aguilar Benítez de Lugo.
[56] In February 1975, Communist Youth member María Rumín was a 17-year-old when she became another one of his victims while she was defending free and quality publish schools at Plaza del Parterre in Carabanchel.
[34] A reform in 1983 said that a victim offering forgiveness to the perpetrator would not result in the dropping of criminal proceedings in the cases of rape, sexual abuse and kidnapping.
[14] In 1987, Spain's Supreme Court ruled that rape victims did not need to prove they actively fought off their rapist to lodge a complaint.
[62] El caso de los niños perdidos del franquismo by Miguel Ángel Rodríguez Arias ends with a demand that the Spanish government start "the opening of an effective and independent official investigation of all its crimes, as required by the European Court of Human Rights, which will lead to the clarification of the facts and the criminal prosecution of those responsible.
[8][14] The case was brought by Women's Link and was to be heard by María Servini de Cubría, the only Argentine judge reviewing Franco era human rights violations in the country.
"[14] She continued, saying the goal of Francoist was to, "send a message of pressure to the whole society of what the model of female behavior should be and at the same time they used women to punish the men of the Republican side.
[55] Argentine Justice placed an international arrest warrant for González Pacheco in 2013 as part of their broader investigation into human rights abuses by the Francoist regime.
