Spain's Viogen protocol: a 2 mm scratch, 24 hours in a cell

When a 2 mm scratch triggers the Viogen protocol

Spain's gender violence protection system speeds up prosecution even when the complaint rests on a 2 mm red mark on someone's nose. A father with shared custody describes how a scuffle with his ex-partner cost him a night in a police cell and a gender violence file, while she showed only a tiny mark next to the five-centimetre bruise he displayed.

According to his account, the conflict was provoked by her in the context of a custody dispute over a girl under 3 years old. After the altercation, he was arrested, handcuffed and spent 24 hours in a cell, before being brought before a judge the next day. The judge did not change the custody arrangement, but the man is now officially listed as a suspect in a gender violence case. The asymmetry in the injuries and in the police treatment raises alarms about the automatic application of the Viogen protocol.

Some argue the story may be exaggerated or one-sided, but the objective fact is that a 2 mm mark on the woman's nose triggered an arrest, while the 5 cm bruise on the man's side led to no action against her. In other countries, this imbalance in the judicial response has been flagged as a sign of bias in the protection of women.

If the trend of applying the protocol without filtering continues, more fathers will share similar stories. The question is whether the system will be able to tell the difference between a real abuser and a father struggling to defend his custody.