Towards the protection of victims of gender-based violence from a child rights approach

Abstract

The new Organic Law 8/2021 on the Comprehensive Protection of Children and Adolescents from Violence (LOPIVI for its Spanish acronym) introduces important amendments in the area of gender-based violence. In this context, this article distinguishes the violence suffered directly by the children of victims of gender-based violence from the psychological harm caused to their mothers through the instrumentalisation of these children. The author seeks to provide a child rights approach to the conceptual discussion of the term «vicarious violence» and defends the need to combine this approach with gender mainstreaming for the effective protection of
both children and their mothers. Therefore, this new Organic Law seeks a paradigm
shift, introducing protective measures that reduce the courts’ margin of interpretation
and place children at the centre, putting their best interests before the rights derived
from parental authority.