Diana Yanet, Spain's first recorded victim of gender-based violence, was murdered in Fuengirola

The crime took place in Fuengirola. On the night of the Three Kings (5 January). Diana Yanet Vargas. Her partner killed her by throwing her off the balcony. She was the first recorded fatal victim of gender-based violence in Spain. Her name is at the top of the list of women murdered at the hands of their spouses, partners or exes. Compilation of this list only began in 2003 in Spain and now the names of another 1,284 women have been added over these last two decades.

The starting up of this register of names, the counting and recording of the identities of these murdered women, is a response to the growing awareness of a social problem that was triggered in 1997 by the case of Ana Orantes, a 60-year-old woman who, after putting up with 40 years of abuse, was then murdered just days after telling her story on television.

"With Ana Orantes, gender-based violence came to the fore socially; it generated a social upheaval and even prompted a legislative change," said Flor de Torres, deputy prosecutor for violence against women in Andalucía for the public prosecutor's office. The legislative change to which De Torres refers is the approval in 2004 of a law on comprehensive protection measures against gender violence, which this year celebrates its 20th anniversary.

This took some doing as, in the words of Lola Rodríguez, who in the early 2000s chaired the Malaga gender violence protest group Cero Violencia, there was a lot of lobbying to get this "pioneering" and "very ambitious" law passed. She recalls how feminists in Malaga collected signatures to demand a law that would protect women.

Rodríguez also recalls that, before they began counting and logging the number of murdered women, as soon as the feminists heard of any case of gender violence in Malaga they would organise protest rallies to express their outrage. They would find out about such crimes through the local town halls, government offices or the press.

News of the murder of Diana Yanet Vargas in Fuengirola nearly 22 years ago had its place on the front page of SUR on 7 January 2003. On the inside pages, the headline was "A woman dies after being thrown by her partner from a first floor in Fuengirola." Nowadays the wording of such a news story would be different, the result of over 20 years of awareness and education on how to report on gender-based violence: victims do not die for some 'reason', they are murdered.

Rodríguez, when she heard of the case, contacted an official at Fuengirola town hall and learned that Diana Yanet Vargas was Colombian and had no family in Malaga. No one claimed her body. About a month later, she was buried in Fuengirola cemetery with the only attendees being half a dozen women belonging to the feminist movements active at the time in Malaga province. One of them was Lola Rodríguez, who remembers that it was raining and that her tears mingled with the raindrops.

Diana Yanet Vargas was 28 years old and had a daughter from a previous relationship. The girl was spending Christmas with her father in Madrid. Women from the movement against gender violence later visited the school in Fuengirola where the girl was attending and there they saw some of her drawings that clearly showed the four-year-old girl was living in a violent home.

The law against gender-based violence that was passed a year after Vargas' murder identifies minors as direct and indirect victims of this reality, and the trial - in 2006 - recognised the child's right to compensation.

Flor de Torres, who at that time was appointed prosecutor for violence against women in Malaga, recalls that the case of Diana Yanet Vargas was complicated as two people were convicted. The first was the murderer, Harald Mikael Robert Hellström. However, a second man was convicted for omission to assist the victim. A friend of the murderer, Charles Paul Marcel Moradell, closed the door of the house to prevent the screams of Vargas from being heard, said De Torres.

According to SUR at the time, in the middle of an argument between the couple, who had been living in the Costa del Sol home for a year, Hellström threw a Christmas tree out of the window. The woman went to pick it up and, on her return, he threw her out of the window. She died instantly after hitting her head on an air conditioner unit. Neighbours told SUR that previously the attacker's friend had prevented them from entering the house when they tried to mediate between the couple. They also admitted that disputes in that home were commonplace.

This case highlighted the danger of omission and inaction, of turning a deaf ear to violence. The collaboration of the general public and especially of the locals in the neighbourhood is sometimes vital. It did not save her life, but the testimony of a neighbour was very important in the sentencing of this murderer to 14 years in prison and compensation for the daughter.

However, Concha Alarcón, who back then was vice-president of the zero violence protest group (Plataforma Violencia Cero), recalls that what was essential was that this feminist organisation brought their own private prosecution with the support of lawyer Rosa Roldán. The murderer had declared that the victim had thrown herself off the balcony, also claiming that "she was not right in the head". Roldán, according to Alarcón's testimony, was able to prove that the way she had fallen could only have happened if someone else had thrown her. Alarcón says it was not easy to prove this because it was the word of a man still alive against a dead woman.

During the trial the criminal, Alarcón recalls, was very calm, even arrogant: "He did not bow his head; he showed no signs of repentance or guilt." She added: "He was always very well-groomed." Concha Alarcón can be seen in the photo that accompanies these lines: "He was just one metre away."

Prosecutor De Torres explains that the case of Diana Yanet Vargas was not heard in specialised chambers. She goes on to explain how nowadays, with the development of the comprehensive law on gender violence and better public awareness, it is more likely that these cases will be dealt with by specialised domestic violence courts. She makes it clear that victims and their families should have their cases treated "with a gender-based perspective", something that has improved substantially in Spain, although "there is still much to be done". Women continue to be doubted and on certain occasions they continue to be re-victimised in the courts.

"The greatest act of injustice is to question the victims; you have to prove a fact, but you don't have to question," she said.

Lola Rodríguez later learned that Diana Yanet Vargas' mother had died as a result of gender-based violence. She also read in the newspaper El Mundo that Diana's daughter, Laura Betancurt Vargas, had also been abused by one of her partners, after a broken childhood in the care system.

Two decades after this murder, the femicides continue. The year 2023 was one of the most violent years against women. According to Alarcón, the increase in male-led gender violence has to do with two factors that are present in our society. Firstly there are the denialists, those who question the very existence of these attacks on women simply because they are women.

Male chauvinists see in these denials a lot of support for their attitudes towards women in general. Secondly there is a very real scarcity of resources that the governing bodies have for specialist training and supporting women who live under threat of such abuse and even to their lives.