Around 80 people gathered this midday in front of the Baix Empordà Regional Council to condemn the physical aggression suffered two weeks ago by a Basic Social Services worker in one of the municipalities of the region where the service is provided. The professional was injured and the Mossos d'Esquadra intervened in the incident.
The aggression was allegedly committed by a user. For now, the worker has not filed a complaint. From the Comarcal Council, they have specified that the affected person has already returned to her job.
Reading of a manifesto in front of the regional headquarters
During the gathering, the manifesto Enough aggressions to professionals! was read, in which it is denounced that this episode does not respond to an isolated case, but to a reality that the participants consider increasingly frequent in the field of social care.
The text argues that social services are an essential pillar of society and highlights that no professional should suffer aggressions, threats, or situations of violence while performing their work. It also demands more social and institutional recognition, effective preventive measures, clear prevention and action protocols, and the recognition of these workers as agents of authority in the exercise of their functions.
Warning about a violence that, they say, is minimized
In the mobilization it has been stated that professionals often encounter contexts of tension, intimidation, and aggressions linked to complex realities. Attendees have warned that this situation is frequently trivialized or minimized.
"It is not an isolated incident" - Montse Gudayol, director of the Basic Area of Social Services of the Baix Empordà Regional Council
Gudayol has pointed out that the teams work with very complex realities and has lamented the feeling of impunity that, in his opinion, some users have.
"They know that nothing will happen to them" - Montse Gudayol, director of the Basic Area of Social Services of the Comarcal Council of Baix Empordà
For his part, the president of the Baix Empordà Regional Council, Enric Marquès, has expressed his strongest rejection of the aggression suffered by the professional while performing her work. The institution has insisted that social services constitute an essential pillar for society.
A protest extended to Girona and la Selva
The Baix Empordà concentration has been framed within a broader mobilization, with acts also before the Selva Regional Council and the Girona City Council. Several collectives and institutions have adhered to the manifesto, among them the College of Social Educators of Catalonia and the Social Action Area of the Sant Feliu de Guíxols City Council.
The protest has served to make visible the discomfort of a sector that demands more protection and concrete responses in the face of episodes of violence that, they maintain, are repeated with increasing frequency in the daily exercise of social care.