Large crowds marched through Barcelona on Friday in protest over violence against women.
Marking the International Day foor the Elimination of Violence against Women, protesters carried banners with slogans reading “”Let’s take to the streets together against male violence”, “Alone and drunk, I want to get home”, and “If you touch one, you touch us all”, among others.
Raquel Sans Guerra, a Catalan MP explained that all assaults are perpetrated by men saying “Every hour five women are murdered worldwide. We know data from the emergency telephone number indicating that in Catalonia, eight calls related to male violence are answered every hour.”
The protests came after it emerged that convicts of sexual abuse had their prison sentences reduced due to what opponents call a loophole in a new law, which has caused outrage across the country.
The law classifies any non-consensual sex as rape, however also sets lighter minimum sentences for certain sexual offences.
