Ana Orantes Ruiz (

Granada Granada ( ; ) is the capital city of the province of Granada, in the autonomous communities of Spain, autonomous community of Andalusia, Spain. Granada is located at the foot of the Sierra Nevada (Spain), Sierra Nevada mountains, at the confluence ...

Spain Spain, or the Kingdom of Spain, is a country in Southern Europe, Southern and Western Europe with territories in North Africa. Featuring the Punta de Tarifa, southernmost point of continental Europe, it is the largest country in Southern Eur ...

, February 6, 1937- Cúllar Vega, December 17, 1997) was a Spanish woman who was a victim of

gender violence Gender-related violence or gender-based violence (GBV) refers to any kind of violence directed against people due to their gender or gender identification, culture may have a role to play, being lower in egalitarianism societies and higher, sexist ...

. After her testimony was shown on a

television program A television show, TV program (), or simply a TV show, is the general reference to any content produced for viewing on a television set that is broadcast via Terrestrial television, over-the-air, Satellite television, satellite, and cable te ...

, 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 Domestic violence is violence that occurs in a domestic setting, such as in a marriage Marriage, also called matrimony or wedlock, is a culturally and often legally recognised union between people called spouses. It establishes r ...

were added to the

Criminal Code of Spain The Criminal Code is a law that codifies most criminal offences in Spain. The Code is established by an organic law, the Organic Law 10/1995, of 23 November, of the Criminal Code (''Ley Orgánica 10/1995, de 23 de noviembre, del Código Penal' ...

. 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 continent located entirely in the Northern Hemisphere and mostly in the Eastern Hemisphere. It is bordered by the Arctic Ocean to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the west, the Mediterranean Sea to the south, and Asia to the east ...

. 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 reorganising of the legal duties and responsibilities of marriage, thus dissolving the M ...

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 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. A prime minister is not the head of state, but r ...

José Luis Rodriguez Zapatero 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 A hospital is a healthcare institution providing patient treatment with specialized health science and auxiliary healthcare staff and medical equipment. The best-known type of hospital is the general hospital, which typically has an emergency ...

, in Granada, after suffering a

myocardial infarction A myocardial infarction (MI), commonly known as a heart attack, occurs when Ischemia, blood flow decreases or stops in one of the coronary arteries of the heart, causing infarction (tissue death) to the heart muscle. The most common symptom ...

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