Ana Orantes Ruiz ( Granada,

Spain , image_flag = Bandera de España.svg , image_coat = Escudo de España (mazonado).svg , national_motto = ''Plus ultra'' (Latin)(English: "Further Beyond") , national_anthem = (English: "Royal March") , i ...

, February 6, 1937-

Cúllar Vega Cúllar Vega is a town in Andalusia, Spain. Situated in the central part of the Vega of Granada, in the province of Granada, it borders the municipalities of Vegas del Genil, Churriana de la Vega and Las Gabias. Demography According to the N ...

, December 17, 1997) was a Spanish woman who was a victim of gender violence. After her testimony was shown on a

television program Television, sometimes shortened to TV, is a telecommunication medium for transmitting moving images and sound. The term can refer to a television set, or the medium of television transmission. Television is a mass medium for advertising, ...

, she was killed by her ex-husband, José Parejo Avivar, on December 17, 1997 at age 60. Her death provoked a national reckoning about gender violence, and as a consequence, legal protections against gender and domestic violence were added to the Criminal Code of Spain. Parejo began abusing Orantes soon after they married, and the behavior intensified over the course of the next 40 years. Although she tried to escape and report her husband to the police, there were no laws to protect victims of domestic violence in

, nor in much of the rest of

Europe Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a subcontinent of Eurasia and it is located entirel ...

. After years of trying, a

divorce Divorce (also known as dissolution of marriage) is the process of terminating a marriage or marital union. Divorce usually entails the canceling or reorganizing of the legal duties and responsibilities of marriage, thus dissolving the ...

was finally granted in 1996.On December 4, 1997, a year after the divorce, she appeared on the television program "''De Tarde en Tarde''" and described the violence and sexual abuse she and her children suffered over the course of her 40-year marriage. Instances of his physical and emotional abuse included punishing her if another man looked at her, isolating her from her family, forbidding her from attending the weddings of her siblings, inappropriately touching their young daughters and countless near-death beatings. She described how she went to the police dozens of times and attempted to obtain a divorce when it became legal in 1981, with no success. When one was finally granted in 1996, she was forced to continue occupying the same house as her husband. 13 days after her interview, Orantes was found dead, murdered by her ex-husband, who had beaten her, tied her to a chair, and burned her alive. The gruesome nature of her murder, especially in such close proximity to her emotionally powerful interview, outraged the country and led to rallies across Spain to call for the protection of domestic violence victims. The conservative government dismissed these rallies, describing what happened to Orantes as an "isolated" event. To challenge this assertion, associations began documenting evidence and statistics about the prevalence of domestic violence. It was only in 2004 that

Prime Minister A prime minister, premier or chief of cabinet is the head of the cabinet and the leader of the ministers in the executive branch of government, often in a parliamentary or semi-presidential system. Under those systems, a prime minister i ...

José Luis Rodriguez Zapatero José is a predominantly Spanish and Portuguese language, Portuguese form of the given name Joseph. While spelled alike, this name is pronounced differently in each language: Spanish ; Portuguese (or ). In French, the name ''José'', pronounced ...

introduced Spain's first laws addressing domestic and gender violence. The far-right Vox party has since increasingly pushed for the elimination of these laws. Parejo was sentenced to 17 years in prison for the murder of his ex-wife. However, seven years after the murder, on November 17, 2004, José Parejo died at the Hospital Ruiz de Alda, in Granada, after suffering a

myocardial infarction A myocardial infarction (MI), commonly known as a heart attack, occurs when blood flow decreases or stops to the coronary artery of the heart, causing damage to the heart muscle. The most common symptom is chest pain or discomfort which may ...

in prison. Orantes was the fifty-ninth victim of domestic abuse-related murder in Spain in 1997. Orantes's sons also claimed to have been abused by Parejo.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Orantes, Ana 1937 births 1997 deaths Female murder victims Marital rape People from Granada Violence against women in Spain