Yes, both civil and criminal legal remedies are available in Spain. Please see the answer to Section 4.4.

No. The national authorities understand acts of gender-based violence as the most flagrant attacks on fundamental rights, such as the fundamental rights of freedom, equality, life, security and nondiscrimination stated in the Spanish Constitution, but national law does not explicitly identify gender-based violence as a fundamental right.

Almost all of the conducts included in the Istanbul Convention are prosecuted in the Spanish legal system. The Criminal Code incorporates gender as a reason for discrimination and as an aggravating factor. With regard to other forms of violence against women, for the first time, it typifies the new crime of forced marriage to comply with the international commitments assumed by Spain in the Istanbul Convention (Article 172-bis).

In addition, the analysis of the level of compliance with the convention by Spain at present is very high.

The foundations and scope of the Istanbul Convention are in accordance with the regulations and actions carried out by Spain in this matter, since among the obligations to the states of the Istanbul Convention some measures already consolidated in our country stand out, such as the following:

• training of different groups of professionals who intervene in situations of gender violence
• the "016" information and legal advice service on gender violence, free of charge and available 24 hours a day, 365 days a year
• design and permanent updating of a statistical information system for data related to gender violence
• public awareness and prevention of gender-based violence through information and awareness campaigns
• the existence of the obligation to report those who because of their positions, professions or trades have news of a public crime, such as the various crimes of violence against women
• ensuring that victims have access to special protection measures

As explained in Section 2.4., Spain has already adopted measures that comply with some of the recommendations included in General Comment No. 35. Besides, since 2017, the Spanish government and Parliament have approved, among others, the following legislatives amendments and legal instruments. These legal measures are not a direct consequence of the official publication of General Comment No. 35 but they include measures with the same orientation and objectives as the recommendations included in General Comment No. 35.

• State Pact Against Gender Violence: This pact was approved in September 2017 and it includes measures structured around 10 lines of action to be implemented by the Government Delegation for Gender-Based Violence, in coordination with the other ministries and their dependent autonomous bodies, as well as the autonomous communities and local entities.
  1. Break the silence by encouraging actions for awareness in society and for the prevention of gender violence with actions aimed at increasing awareness in society of the damage that inequality and violent behavior causes, and raise people's awareness of the scale of the problem of violence against women and the consequences it has for the lives of women and their children.
  2. Improve the institutional response through coordination and connected work between responsible authorities and organs (e.g., using the resources available, promoting support resources in the local sphere and improving the protocols for intervention and communications between the agents involved).
  3. Improve the help, support and protection offered to women victims of gender violence and their children. The existing medical protocols will be reviewed and reinforced along with the job placement schemes for women victims, with the active engagement of social entities, while all the support systems foreseen by the law will be simplified and improved.
  4. Enhance support and protection for minors. The specific protection for minors derives from the recognition of their status as direct victims and the associated need to expand and improve the measures to support and safeguard them through the deployment of new services in cases where children are orphaned though gender violence, a review of the civil law measures in relation to the custody of minors and encouragement of reinforcement actions in education.
  5. Improve training of the agents to ensure better care services. To offer victims of gender violence the best possible support, all the professionals who have a role to play in the system, such as judges, prosecutors, psychologists and social workers, forensic pathologists, the police and security forces, medical staff and teachers, among others, must be offered specialist training. The commitment lies in ensuring that the training material is mandatory, approved by specialist bodies and subject to examination for all those involved.
  6. Improve knowledge as an essential ingredient in ensuring that the fight against all forms of violence against women is effective in all the areas where the Istanbul Convention applies, with more reliable, complete and detailed data on the forms, frequency, causes and effects. This is the reason for the commitment to ensure statistical monitoring of all kinds of violence against women, taking variables such as age, disability, stability of employment or frequency in rural areas into account, and the preparation of studies and reports that place special emphasis on the impact on the children of the victims, on sexual violence and on the employment situation of the women who are victims.
  7. Provide recommendations for autonomous communities, local entities and other institutions as essential collaborators to achieve the elimination of gender-related violence against women. The measures they adopt are directly related to the responsibilities they have acquired.
  8. Observe and pay attention to forms of gender violence that take place outside the context of the partner or ex-partner, with special focus on sexual violence, trafficking of women and girls for the purpose of sexual exploitation, female genital mutilation and forced marriages.
  9. Ensure financial commitment toward policies for the eradication of violence against women.
  10. Monitor the State Pact Against Gender Violence and the submission of the information required by the Pact Monitoring Committee, enabling it to carry out its functions of assessing and supervising the progress that has been made in deploying the pact.
• Royal Decree-Law 9/2018, dated 3 August, on urgent measures for the development of the State Pact Against Gender Violence: This Royal Decree-Law amends several sections of the Comprehensive Protection Against Gender-Based Violence Law, Law 7/1985, dated 2 April, regulating the Bases of the Local Regime and the Civil, with the aim of reinforcing judicial protection and access to justice and to assistance resources for victims of gender violence, as well as the protection of minors exposed to gender violence. The main measures implemented are as follows:

• Improve the participation of the victim in the criminal process through the necessary measures that expedite the urgent appointment of lawyers and public prosecutors in the gender violence-related procedures, which ensure their immediate presence for the defense and representation of the victims.
• Ensure the possibility that the victim is represented by the public defender assigned through the free legal aid system and holds her representation during the time the victim appoints an attorney to defend her in the legal proceedings and decides to appear as a private prosecutor.
• Specify and expand the enabling judicial titles to prove the condition of a victim of gender violence; and other nonjudicial qualifying titles for cases in which there is no complaint and, consequently, there is no open judicial procedure.
• Include in the catalog of competences of the local administrations those related to the promotion of equality between men and women, as well as against gender violence, since it is the administration closest to the citizenry. Provide a budget for administrations to adopt measures to implement the State Pact Against Gender Violence.