Systemic Use of Sexual Violence: Francoist Spain

Written By The Gender Security Project

This case note documents the occurrence of sexual violence in violent conflict. It contains explicit mentions of different forms of sexual assault. Reader discretion is advised.


Background of the Conflict

Francoist Spain, or Spain under the Francoist dictatorship, extended from 1936 to 1975, in Spain. Francisco Franco ruled Spain after the Spanish Civil War. His regime was a dictatorship fronted by single-party rule, and was often described as a Fascistized dictatorship (Saz Campos, 2004) and a semi-fascist regime (Recio, 2015). The regime, characterized by autarky, slowly moved toward being a developmental dictatorship with fascist trappings (Tussell, 1999). There were reforms in the 1950s. Spain’s isolationism during World War II meant that it abandoned autarky and reassigned authority from the Falangist movement to a new breed of economists, the technocrats of Opus Dei (Reuter, 2014). With these reforms, Spain was no longer totalitarian, but became an authoritarian system with limited pluralist and economic freedoms (Payne, 2011), which led to its admission into the United Nations. Eventually, before he died, Franco restored the monarchy and made King Jun Carlos I his successor, who ultimately led to Spain’s transition to a democracy.  

Prevalence of Sexual Violence

Gender-based and sexual violence, including rape, was a significant feature of Francoist Spain. It was common on part of the Nationalist forces and their allies during the Civil War (García Dueñas, 2022; Guillén Lorente, 2018). Reports show that Falangist rearguard troops raped and murdered women across the country, targeting socialists, young women and girls, nurses, and milicianas. Reports also show that similar patterns of rape and sexual violence were found in Maials, Callus, and Cantalpino, and Moroccan Foreign Legionaries were deployed to commit rape. Women were vulnerable in hospitals and prisons, and faced death if they refused to have sex with their captors (García Dueñas, 2022; Guillén Lorente, 2018). Precise data, however, remain absent owing to the lack of reportage. The end of the Civil War witnessed the return of men to the household, where they treated their wives as subservient and subjected other women to sexual slavery.

Basis of the Use of Sexual Violence  

Gender-based and sexual violence, including rape, was the result of Nationalist attitudes developed during the Spanish Civil War – women were targeted for their own and their families’ political views. Sexual and gender-based violence were used to intimidate and torture women and girls, and to humiliate both women and girls and by extension, their families. It was a tool of control, repression, and subordination especially in prisons and hospitals. It was used as a means to instil a sense of terror among local populations.

References

 

The Gender Security Project
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CRSV: “The Troubles”