Luís Montenegro makes second surprising comment of day
Portugal’s prime minister has expressed his conviction that the increase in cases of domestic violence (widely reported yesterday, to commemorate International Day for Elimination of Violence against Women) is due to the fact that there are more reports and not to a “real increase” in the phenomenon.
On the same day that he revealed a “new concept” in taking responsibility (carrying on without resigning), Mr Montenegro said that he doubts that the increase in the number of cases recorded in statistics “means an increase in the criminality typified for domestic violence”.
Speaking last night at the closing session of a conference in Cascais, focussed on combating violence against women, the prime minister did stress that his government is committed to doing so, and that he didn’t want to shock anyone with his views.
Unfortunately, however, he most certainly has.
PS leader Pedro Nuno Santos was one of the first to react to what he saw as a lack of respect for victims of domestic violence.
Less politically-inclined critics have simply labelled this as a(nother) “fragile moment” that has shown rather more than perhaps is wise of the prime minister’s true persona.
Luís António Santos, a lecturer at the Institute of Social Sciences at the University of the Minho believes that “as the months pass, the image that the (recent election) campaign machinery created” of the candidate for the prime ministership has become “diluted (…) more details, nuances and fragilities of the real Luís Montenegro” have started appearing, as happens with “all political leaders”.
Thus, on top of all the other ‘shocks’ and hiccups of this new administration comes another, that everyone has been primed to accept will not lead to any kind of apology, as Mr Montenegro’s “new concept” would not require it.
As he told his audience, “one of the phenomena that has happened in recent years is precisely that a lot has come out of the wardrobe where it was hidden. I don’t want, I repeat, to shock anyone, but I’m aware that the increase we have seen in a few years doesn’t mean a real increase, it means an increase in knowledge,” he said, adding that he’s convinced that Portuguese society “has been much worse from that point of view”.
Needless to say, the “government is committed to being able to use all its areas of action to, in a transversal and multisectoral way, contribute to detecting the occurrence of crime, punishing those responsible and, above all, protecting the victims”, he went on.
Montenegro stressed that the government is currently working on prevention and victim support, claiming that it is making perhaps “the biggest investment ever” in this area, and emphasising that it has set itself the goal of reviewing the model for assessing and managing the degree of risk to victims.
He added that the government intends to “create a line of funding aimed at non-governmental organisations (NGOs)” that work in the sector of combating domestic violence, as well as creating a funding fund (sic) for the educational training of children.
“We also want to implement a specialised support programme for family members, in particular children and teenagers of victims of domestic violence,” he said, stressing that this would be a “significant step towards being able to, in some way, reduce the impact of such a tragic occurrence that, unfortunately, domestic violence brings”.
“It is also my wish that it can decrease year on year,” he added, describing the crime as a “crime of terror”, emphasising that it is “ongoing”, often goes unreported, and “occurs every day, confronting the victim with the greatest sense of insecurity a human being can have.
“It is living in fear. Frankly, there is nothing that can mobilise a politician more than helping to eradicate, diminish, attenuate, depending on the magnitude of our actions and deeds, such a significant dimension of offence against the basic values of respect for citizenship and people’s rights,” he said.
Mr Montenegro emphasised that the fight against domestic violence will “always be an incessant battle, which does not bring immediate results and which will always be an unfinished task.
“We know that this fight will never end, never. But the responsibility we have is that, when we bequeath it to others who will follow us, we can deliver a better situation than the one we found,” he concluded.
Source material: LUSA
