“DIRTY WASHING” OF DOMESTIC VIOLENCE AIRED IN MALAGA STREET

News

Michael Coy / 2009-11-29 14:37:30

Domestic violence brought to Malaga's streets

The people of Malaga are hanging out paper garments in the calle Larios, detailing real-life experiences of domestic violence. The project is aimed at “naming and shaming” men who beat their wives.

Washing lines have sprung up last Wednesday in one of Malaga’s busiest shopping streets. However, the city centre site is not the place to dry innocent shirts or nappies ... the purpose of the event is to highlight real cases of domestic abuse and violence.

The initiative is fully endorsed by City Hall and is intended to draw attention to the “dirty washing” of domestic bullying and aggression. Washing lines strung between lamp posts bear paper facsimiles of T-shirts, on which are written the names and details of men known to use violence against their wives, girlfriends and children.

Passers-by are invited to throw written accounts of abuse into a giant mock-up washing machine, positioned in full public view. Students from Malaga University have volunteered to “hang out the dirty washing”, genuine information garnered over the last three weeks by social workers and charity personnel, who have gone out to the housing estates and high-rise blocks of Malaga to speak candidly with women and collect and record their stories.

“There is dirty washing which will never be cleaned indoors,” say banners in the main shopping district. Each symbolic T-shirt bears one woman’s account of the violence she has suffered. City Hall’s Equality Unit has launched the eye-catching campaign, “because private abuse is a public issue,” as a spokesman said today. “This problem needs to be brought out of the darkness and silence of the home, and exposed in the full light of day.”

Wednesday 25 November was the International day Against Domestic Violence, Figures released this afternoon show that in the last six months Malaga’s health authorities have initiated 935 criminal prosecutions against abusive men.