This year, the Spanish Commission for the Assistance of Refugees (CEAR) has supported more than 130 victims of discrimination and trained 500 migrants in its “Speak Up Against Racism and Xenophobia” project.
This was emphasized by NGOs in the framework of the anniversary of the murder of Lucrecia Pérez, which occurred on November 13, 1992 and was recognized as a racist crime for the first time in Spain.
In this sense, CEAR showed that the project, which began this year in Valencia, Seville and Madrid, in its 10 months of operation has served more than 130 people suffering from situations of racism and xenophobia in various sectors, in particular in registration, housing, health, employment and access to banking services.
Additionally, more than 500 migrants have been informed and trained on access to rights, equal treatment and non-discrimination.
Similarly, the NGO warned that “migrants continue to face serious obstacles to registration, which impede their access to fundamental rights.” He also accused some financial institutions of refusing to open bank accounts for vulnerable people, despite this being their right.
Similarly, he noted there have been “numerous” cases in which the organization has accompanied people who were “excluded” from the health care system because they were not registered or did not have documentation other than a DNI.
“I waited for more than a year to be registered. I was working, but the house I lived in and rented refused to register me. Finally, thanks to the mediation carried out by CEAR in Valencia, I managed to get it registered by the city council,” says Jennifer Restrepo, one of the beneficiaries of the project.
Another user, Lorena Valdez, said she faced discrimination at the health center. “I had been seeing the same doctor for three years, but when I changed health centers, the new doctor immediately noticed my accent and when she realized I was Latinx, she didn’t want to get tested or review my medical leave. She told me I had to go to work right now. “This is what we came here for, not to sit around. It was difficult because this doctor sent me to work in a miserable state. What he did was disrespect all the rights I have as a person,” he explains.
After going to CEAR Madrid, Valdez was given instructions on how to apply and was accompanied to her next doctor’s appointment “because I was scared to get tested again.”
Along these lines, CEAR noted that in Seville, Claudina Suárez and her two daughters experienced racist situations in their rented accommodation. “I am alone and have two daughters. From the day I arrived at my new house, the people I was renting to started demanding that I pay more money. Then they wouldn’t even let me use the washing machine, and they started making threats and racist insults. They even told my daughters what they were going to do to get us deported. The situation was terrible,” the user says.
The services provided by CEAR make it possible to inform, advise, accompany and monitor potential victims of discrimination during their reporting and recovery process through comprehensive interventions, both individual and group, while facilitating training activities for immigrant populations on the prevention of racism and hate crimes.
Finally, CEAR warned against the “progress of anti-rights policies that promote xenophobia and hate speech, provoke racist attitudes, call into question fundamental rights, and increasingly give rise to discriminatory incidents on racial and/or ethnic grounds.” He therefore called on migrants to “speak out” as a “fundamental step” to “end impunity and prevent crimes like Lucrecia Perez’s from happening again.”
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