State Cooperation Tour
Tiny grains of sand slip through clothing, reach any point on the body, become sticky by a temperature of 38 degrees, which this morning had a humidity of 21%. injury, the capital of Mauritania. Despite these circumstances, fifty locals await the crowd under a tent. They don’t complain, they barely talk. they are women dressed Malefa and with men other, typical local dress. They await the arrival of Queen Letizia, who begins her first day in Mauritania greeting this diverse group outside the National Fish Distribution Society.
The Queen was introduced to Mauritania for one of the most emblematic projects of the Spanish collaboration. with Maryam Mint Ahmed, The first lady of the Islamic Republic, Doa Letizia, found out the Nouakchot logistics platform, with trucks with the capacity to transport 40 tons of fish every day to distribute it among the poorest population, who thanks to subsidies can get two kilos. fish. Fish for the price of a loaf.
Fatma Mint Mohammed is one of the beneficiaries of this service. Taking a five-year-old girl in his arms, he explains to the medium that children “love to eat fish.” So four days a week they go to their distribution point to buy their subsidized fish ration and add it to the family diet.
“Acid fueled the creation of the National Fish Distribution Society in 2012”, explains Learney Galds, Responsible for cooperation programs in Mauritania. To date, thanks to the project, which began with a budget of five million euros, there are seven distribution platforms that handle 400 tons of fish. “We are now working on the quality of distribution and beneficiaries: 300,000 people with a poverty profile of 55%. The goal is to reach 400,000 people with a poverty profile of 75%,” explains Galds.
Because the situation of poverty in this country is very dire. With a per capita GDP of 1,500 euros and a salary that does not reach 150 euros per month, only subsidies and help They are ways for citizens to improve their quality of life.
In addition to the fishing project, the Spanish collaboration is very involved and committed to the fight against gender violence and equality. Foreign sources summarize the Spanish collaboration as “dialogue and feminist”. For this reason, after learning about the fish distribution platform, Doa Letizia visits a police station where sexual abuse of girls is reported.
Mauritania has a high level of sexual violence against children under the age of 15, who are victims of female sexual mutilation, early marriage and forced fattening in line with national beauty standards. Efforts are made to fight against all this through the Transversal Program for the Prevention and Protection of Victims of Gender Based Violence. At the police level, a protocol has been established so that local agents know how to deal with women reporting any type of sexual violence. “For example, we have achieved that when they go to report abuse, no one asks them if they were virgins,” he explains to EL Mundo.
The program also trains judges in gender equality and at the core of the problem, they are training those responsible for the care of victims in six hospitals. “The data we have on gender-based violence is negligible because barriers to access to rights are still huge,” she condemns. Marina Stusey, Representative of the Doctors of the World, one of 18 Spanish NGOs working in Mauritania. “For them, reporting is a very serious problem because there is no system that can really protect them.”
This is all explained to the Queen, when she visits police station facilities that focus on caring for girls who have suffered sexual violence in West Nouacchott. Doa Letizia has asked about the shelter and security of the young women after filing a complaint and returning to their villages or homes.
according to the norms of
