Translations into English of several chapters from the book Interpretación
en contextos de violencia de género published by the Speak Out for Support
(SOS-VICS) project and supervised by Prof. Jim Hlavac from Monash
University, Melbourne, Australia
Book reference: Toledano Buendía, C. & Del Pozo Triviño, M. (Eds.) (2015). Interpretación
en contextos de violencia de género. Valencia: Tirant Lo Blanch. ISBN: 9788416349319.
–––––––––––
INTRODUCTION:
FOUNDATIONS FOR THE EMERGENCE OF A SUBDISCIPLINE
[pages in original: 15-24]
Carmen Toledano Buendía
Universidad de La Laguna
Translated by Kim Martinow
Monash University
Introduction
For several decades now, many countries have had a strong track record in the fight against
gender violence (GV). GV or violence against women refers to “any act of gender-based
violence that results in, or is likely to result in, physical, sexual or psychological harm or
suffering to women, including threats of such acts, coercion or arbitrary deprivation of
liberty, whether occurring in public or in private life” (United Nations 1993). It is one of the
most tragic consequences of the inequality between men and women.
Nevertheless, the different programmes, measures and legal instruments devised for tackling
this problem do not appear to be sufficient to put an end to this violation of human rights. At
the European level – and it is safe to assume that this geopolitical zone is not the most
exposed to these types of crimes – the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights
(FRA) report Violence against Women: An EU-wide survey1 reveals the magnitude of abuse
that women suffer, both in public and private. The survey results indicate that 13 million
women in the European Union (EU) have experienced physical violence in the 12 months
preceding the survey and correspond to 7 per cent of women aged between 18 and 74 years.
In Spain, one in five women aged 15 and above (that is, 22 per cent) suffered physical or
1
Report prepared by the FRA and based on interviews with 42,000 women across the 28 Member
States of the EU
[! 1]
sexual violence, and less than a fifth of them reported their most serious incident to the police
(FRA 2014).
Taking these figures into consideration, it seems evident that Member States must increase
their efforts to combat this violence. Similarly, Directive 2012/29/EU of the European
Parliament and of the Council of 25 October 2012 establishing minimum standards on the
rights, support and protection of victims of crime, calls upon Member States to improve
legislation and policies to combat all forms of violence against women, effect preventative
action and guarantee the right to assistance and support for all such victims. Special attention
must be paid to the needs of particular groups which, for various reasons, such as age,
religion, or country of origin, find themselves in a situation of enhanced vulnerability. This is
especially the case of foreign women who do not have or have only a limited knowledge of
the local community language. Article 3 (Right to understand and to be understood) and
Article 7 (Right to interpreting and translation) of the aforementioned Directive establish the
need for interpreting services to be made available free of charge, in order to ensure effective
exercise of rights to the said assistance and support.
It should be noted that communicative barriers reinforce feelings of isolation, vulnerability,
fear and mistrust suffered by victims of abuse. They also make prevention and detection of
crime difficult and consequently, constitute a risk factor.
It is against this backdrop that the European research project SOS-VICS was born, to help
improve provision of linguistic assistance services to foreign female GV victims through
interpreter training and specialisation.
Unfortunately, in many EU countries, including Spain, far from being a guaranteed right for
victims, linguistic assistance in the field of public services in general, and within the GV
context in particular, is characterised by the irregularity, discontinuity, singularity and
deprofessionalisation of the service provided. In Spain, except in the legal field where the
presence of a professional interpreter in criminal proceedings is prescribed by law2, linguistic
assistance is not guaranteed in any of the public services and nor, therefore, in the care and
assistance resources and services for GV victims. In this area, finding solutions for effective
service delivery through improvisation is virtually the norm, as seen in the research
developed under the SOS-VICS project framework 3.
In order to ensure the quality of linguistic assistance in criminal proceedings, Directive 2010/64/EU
of the European Parliament and of the Council of 20 October 2010, on the rights to interpreting and
to translation in criminal proceedings has sought to alleviate current deficiencies by requiring
interpreter training and professionalization in Member States.
2
3
The first stage of the SOS-VICS project consisted of different analytical studies based on a range of
methodologies (discussion groups, surveys and interviews). The aim was to determine the
communication and interpreting needs of victims and professionals across different intervention
stages and fields, as well as expectations regarding the training and professionalization of mediators
involved in these contexts. As a result of these studies, different materials and support resources for
victims, professionals and interpreters, have been developed in the second stage of the project. This
monograph is one of these resources.
[! 2]
The provision of linguistic assistance services usually depends on fluctuating budget
appropriations. These resources are therefore dependent on political will or economic
conditions, as has been reported by some professionals whose interpreting services have been
withdrawn in recent years due to budget cuts:
[...] We feel that this loss of service is very serious not only due to the professional difficulties
involved but also due to the damage that it will cause directly on the most vulnerable group
namely: foreign GV victims. (Questionnaire no. 580 in Del Pozo et al. 2014a).
Most of the different professionals involved in assisting GV victims and surveyed for the
project shared the view that linguistic assistance not only improves the level of attention
provided, but should also be considered as the victim’s fundamental right (37.7 per cent agree
and 21.8 per cent strongly agree with this statement).
As a result of the imbalance between the perceived need and availability of resources,
mediation tasks often fall upon unskilled personnel: volunteers, friends, relatives and even
the victims’ sons and daughters. This practice, beyond its inevitable timely use, entails
serious risks for everyone involved. The lack of trained personnel to perform linguistic
mediation tasks means that women are sometimes obliged to seek their own mediators. The
paradox is that sometimes the aggressors themselves are the ones who accompany the victims
and act as their interpreters. One health professional states:
I never worked with professional interpreters, just with persons close to victims. I have
attended alleged foreign victims (Romanian, Moroccan) who did not make a complaint and it
was impossible to talk to them about the matter since they were accompanied by the possible
aggressor to the medical consultation. (Questionnaire no. 4 in Del Pozo et al. 2014a).
One consequence of this practice is the difficulty for victims to establish trust towards
institutions, and consequently, to ensure the effectiveness and continuity of their
interventions, given that victims may feel self-conscious or simply inhibited. As a result of
not having qualified personnel and resorting to mediators who often belong to the victim’s
social or cultural environment, it is not possible to ensure the essential confidentiality,
neutrality or compliance with any other ethical principle that, in the case of GV victims, may
even safeguard their physical integrity. Occasionally, the mediator’s apparent stance may
limit the freedom of women to exercise their rights. Finally, this practice puts the people who
act as interpreters at risk, due to their involvement in situations that pose an emotional
burden, which can be difficult to manage. They are forced to adopt compromising positions
and are exposed to consequences or even to reprisal.
The specialisation of both the assistance services and resources, as well as of the
professionals and operators who provide them, is required due to the enormous complexity of
the GV phenomenon and the multiple needs of the victims. The team of professionals
assisting victims should be familiar with the current resources, legislation and measures
available to women. They must act from a gender perspective and in a coordinated manner,
following field-specific protocols to ensure efficient attention and avoid any double
victimisation of women.
[! 3]
To encourage specialisation of the professional groups providing information, care and
protection to victims is one of the guiding principles of the Basic Act 1/2004 of 28 December,
on Comprehensive Protection Measures against Gender-based Violence. According to data
from the SOS-VICS surveys, 90.6 per cent of professionals report having undertaken
specialised GV training; the highest percentage being legal professionals (97.8 per cent),
followed by social professionals (92.5 per cent), police (91.9 per cent) and health
professionals (72.6 per cent). Of the professionals surveyed, 49.3 per cent consider that the
training was sufficient particularly among legal professionals; whereas 40.4 per cent
considered it to be insufficient. Out of the total group, 82.9 per cent of professionals would
prefer to receive more training.
These same professionals consider it important that training be extended to interpreters who
work with foreign victims. Almost half the people surveyed consider it to be very important
(23.9%) or important (23.2%) that interpreters have specific training to work in their field.
Among all the professionals surveyed, those in the legal and social fields allocate this the
highest importance (in the social field 38.5% consider it very important and 24.8%
important).
The interpreters themselves stated that lack of specialised training and problems of access to
it are a barrier or difficulty to practice their work with GV victims, as reflected in the results
of the Delphi survey (carried out on interpreters with experience) (Del Pozo et al. 2014b).
This training must incorporate content related to interpreting, knowledge of intervention
settings, and skills for handling emotions and stress, among other subject matter.
The objective of this book is to meet these training needs. It draws on the experience,
guidance, knowledge, as well as concerns and demands of a large number of people involved
with GV victims who did not speak or have a good command of the working language of the
interactions. This includes professionals from all fields and ranks, including victims, research
staff or trainers, and the interpreters themselves.
We must note that the information discussed and presented here is constrained to Spain, in
terms of both the applicable legislation and the intervention pathways and action protocols
described. Nonetheless, there are many contexts and conditions, constraints and cautions, and
resources and recommendations which can be extrapolated to linguistic mediation with GV
victims in other geographical contexts.
How can this book be used?
Our initial aim is to provide trained interpreters working in the public sector with the
essential knowledge and resources necessary to work in GV contexts. For this reason, this
book is defined primarily as a training resource that provides conceptual and methodological
tools for interpreters to specialise in working with female GV victims.
However, this book can also be used as a research reference, to the extent that it contributes
to the development of knowledge to and from the Interpreting Studies discipline. This occurs
[! 4]
from the perspective of public service interpreting, by examining its specificities in contexts,
situations and with users who provide a characteristic nature to its practice. Linguistic
mediation processes within GV contexts have not, until now, been subject to systematic
research; and, although our contribution cannot expect to exhaust such a complex and
changing phenomenon, it might, for that reason in particular, encourage the opening of new
study and research channels.
Moreover, the aim of this publication goes beyond disciplinary usefulness and can be
projected onto the social sphere, where it can also be conceived as an awareness-raising tool;
firstly, regarding the importance of specialisation and training, professionalisation, and
recognition of language mediators as another essential component in the provision of
assistance to GV victims; and, secondly, as a tool to raise awareness of the significance of
fully comprehensive attention. Therefore, this book aims to be a tool in the fight against GV –
particularly in cases where a second or third victimisation occurs – since the
professionalisation and correct provision of specialised linguistic assistance services
contribute to a better understanding of resources; create more trust in institutions; bring
services closer to their users; and, increase their effectiveness substantially. In summary,
these contribute towards putting an end to this violation of human rights. They do so in
relation to a specific group – that of foreign female victims, immigrants, often "illegals",
isolated from their community of origin and from the host community – which surely marks
the highest level of exposure to a "risk society” that sees social division increasing daily.
The diverse contributions in this publication address the subject matter and provide key
concepts for the training and capacity-building of professional interpreters in GV contexts.
They are based on an in-depth analysis of this practice undertaken as part of the SOS-VICS
project research. These contributions intend to meet the needs and expectations disclosed by
different participants in these communication processes. The focus of this content responds,
in turn, to the inherent demands for interventions with GV victims: its fundamental
interdisciplinary nature, the imperative adoption of a gender perspective, and the inevitable
anticipation of the emotional burden experienced during the interactions.
The book begins with an article that puts the problem of violence against women into
context. As stated by Pérez Freire and Casado-Neira, GV, in all its forms, must be understood
as a threat to human rights characterised, as a starting point, by a social patriarchal structure
based on traditions, beliefs and customs that incite and preserve gender inequality. To ensure
action from a gender perspective, which understands and does not blame women nor justifies
violence, it is essential to comprehend GV. This includes understanding its different
typologies and phases, as well as the social inequalities and myths that perpetuate it. In order
to understand the reality of women that underpins GV, including their role within society,
living conditions and empowerment prospects, it is essential to consider the concept of
gender as a socio-cultural construction of identity that preserves certain gender-specific
privileges. This situation of inequality is perfectly evidenced by study indicators, which
[! 5]
reflect healthcare access for women, their literacy and schooling levels, their working
conditions and degree of economic emancipation, trust in institutions, abuse, and GV.
The work of Abril, Toledano, Ugarte and Fernández focuses on interpreting. All professional
interpreters must have, among their skills and knowledge, a set of theoretical, conceptual and
methodological tools on which to base their translation practice. Knowledge of the discipline
allows interpreters to accordingly identify and reproduce the established practices and norms
that govern the translation process. It also helps them to transform that knowledge into action
to appropriately respond to the requirements of diverse mediation contexts. The authors, as
part of this publication, review some basic concepts related to interpreting and its different
types and varieties, while paying special attention to the sub-discipline of public service
interpreting. With the aim of contributing to the training of interpreters who work in the
victim attention process, a number of general issues are raised related to interlingual
mediation within GV contexts, including: its key and distinguishing characteristics; the socioprofessional environments in which interpreting is required as part of a complex process of
fully comprehensive attention; and, the participants who will presumably take part in the
different interactions. They also address the essential competency attributes of the interpreter
working within these contexts, and the professional codes of ethics and good practice
standards that must be exercised when providing public service interpreting in GV cases.
The article written by Fernández Pérez is dedicated specifically to the analysis of the two
remote interpreting modes: telephone and video-conference interpreting. The use of remote
interpreting is growing as an alternative linguistic assistance resource to in-person
interpreting, as a result of accelerated communication technologies development, its cost
effectiveness, immediate service delivery, and the wide language coverage. This is a very
useful resource in GV contexts, particularly in emergency interventions, as exemplified by
the use of the 112 and 016 emergency services phone lines. The technical equipment used and
the location of the interpreter in the communicative situation (with no or only partial visual
contact with the interlocutors) are some peculiarities that differentiate this mode from inperson interpreting. These peculiarities require that, as stated by the author, the interpreter
acquires and develops specific skills.
Knowledge of the thematic fields that frame the communicative interactions is one of the
most important competencies required for the specialisation of interpreters in the public
services. Attention and assistance to GV victims are provided in three fields: legal and police,
health, and psychosocial. The development of thematic competence for mediation in these
contexts requires an interdisciplinary knowledge that allows the interpreter, among other
things, to be familiar with: the participants; their jargon and protocols; the resources and
institutions with which they work; the applicable legislation and the documentation handled;
the type of interviews done; and, the objective and communicative function of each
interaction, etc. In order to provide interpreters with this extensive information, the following
three contributions have been drafted.
[! 6]
Ortega Herráez, Fernandes del Pozo and González Navarro address interpreting in the legal
and police context, two areas of attention to GV victims, that are intimately linked and
coordinated. They explain in detail the process that the victim follows, from filing a
complaint to the trial, particularly in the stages in which interpreter mediation is required. The
authors also describe the different communicative situations, the interlocutors and the
documents and legislation that they work with, the basic terminology, and also the aspects
regarding how the interpreter should adjust to the protocols and specific needs of the
interactions in this setting.
Similarly, Valero, Lázaro and Del Pozo offer a detailed description of GV victim intervention
in the health field. They describe the typical process that victims follow in the primary care,
emergency, mental health and forensic medicine services; the health personnel action
protocols and the communicative situations that are most representative of the different stages
of patient diagnosis and follow-up; and, the type of interviews conducted and reports issued.
The role and function of the interpreter in the health field is a controversial topic in
Interpreting Studies where the degree of visibility and involvement of the interpreter during
the interaction are debated. To ensure successful interpreting interventions, the authors justify
the incorporation of the interpreter into the multidisciplinary team of experts attending to the
victims, acknowledging their professional limits, but also their active role in the interview.
Interpreter involvement in psychosocial field interventions is addressed by Arumí, GilBardají, Vargas-Urpi and Aguilera. The article is organised into sections, which correspond to
the stages that an interpreter goes through in practice – before, during and after the
interaction – and offers a series of recommendations and guidelines regarding mediation with
GV victims, from external and internal preparations through to the final result. To facilitate
the performance of the interpreter during his or her interventions, the authors detail the type
of assistance provided, such as social work and psychology in the different stages of his or
her intervention, and the types of interviews and surveys conducted (including their purpose
and communication styles).
A distinctive feature of interpreting for GV victims is the high emotional aspect of the
interactions in which the interpreter works. The woman’s emotional state, the unpleasant
experiences reported, the high-risk situation that she may be facing, or the immediacy
required by the intervention are all possible stress-provoking factors for the interpreter. On
the other hand, direct interaction with the GV victim might cause excessive emotional stress
or have an impact upon the professional, or cause an over-identification with the victim.
These problems could make it difficult for the interpreter to perform his or her duties
appropriately. The last article of this publication seeks to provide a series of tools and
strategies that interpreters can implement to develop self-help skills and facilitate their work.
To improve the interpreter’s communication with both professionals and victims, Aguilera
Ávila provides a number of guidelines for the development of assertiveness and empathy.
Additionally, to deal with stress management and emotional pressure, the author explains
some techniques that can be practised before, during and after a professional intervention.
[! 7]
Finally, some cognitive techniques are identified in relation to dealing with thoughts that
might distort the perceived value of the professionals and their work.
This publication is intended to complement another training resource for interpreters in GV
contexts: the SOS-VICS Training Website. This website supplements and complements the
articles with the following: definitions of concepts and specialised terms; detailed
descriptions of the victim’s situation and assistance provided in a variety of contexts;
resources and documents used in these interactions; and a variety of role plays.
Bibliography
DEL POZO TRIVIÑO, M.; VAAMONDE LISTE, A.; CASADO-NEIRA, D.; PÉREZ
FREIRE, S.; VAAMONDE PANIAGUA, A.; FERNANDES DEL POZO,D.;
GUINARTE MENCÍA, R. (2014a). Communication between professionals providing
attention and gender violence victims/survivors who do not speak the language. A
report on the survey carried out on agents during the Speak Out for Support (SOSVICS) project. Vigo: Servizo de Publicacións da Universidade de Vigo.
DEL POZO TRIVIÑO, M.; VAAMONDE LISTE, A.; PÉREZ FREIRE, S.; CASADONEIRA, D.; VAAMONDE PANIAGUA, A.; FERNANDES DEL POZO, M.;
GUINARTE MENCÍA, R. (2014b). Specialised training for interpreters working with
gender violence victims/survivors. A report on the Delphi survey carried out on
interpreters during the Speak Out for Support (SOS-VICS) project. Vigo: Servizo de
Publicacións da Universidade de Vigo.
EUROPEAN UNION (2010). Directive 2010/64/EU of the European Parliament and of the
Council of 20 October 2010 on the rights to interpreting and to translating in criminal
proceedings. Electronic version: < http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/ALL/?
uri=celex%3A32010L0064 >
–
(2012). Directive 2012/29/EU of the European Parliament and of the Council of 25
October 2012 establishing minimum standards on the rights, support and protection of
victims of crime. Electronic version: http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/
LexUriServ.do?uri=OJ:L:2012:315:0057:0073:EN:PDF
FRA – European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights (2014). Violence against women: an
EU-wide survey. Electronic version: <http://fra.europa.eu/en/publication/2014/violenceagainst-women-eu-wide-survey-main-results-report >
UN (1993). Declaration on the Elimination of Violence against Women. New York: United
Nations. Electronic version: <http://www.un.org/documents/ga/res/48/a48r104.htm>
[! 8]
GENDER VIOLENCE DIMENSIONS:
BEYOND ‘INDOORS'
[pages in original: 25-52]
Silvia Pérez Freire, David Casado-Neira
University of Vigo
Translated by Kim Martinow
Monash University
Introduction
Violence against women involves the violation of fundamental rights that seriously impact on
women's dignity and equality. For this reason, this issue firstly requires a critical view
towards civil society and the institutional response to this type of violence, and also a solid
conceptual and contextual framework to convey a phenomenon seldom analysed thoroughly.
Gender violence (GV) is a complex issue with deep cultural roots that requires reflection.
There are many preconceptions and prejudices to contend with and to detach from to provide
good professional and ethical attention. The increasing social awareness of this issue has led
to better services and to a greater visibility of GV, however, this problem has not decreased in
recent years. This is due, in part, to prevailing social clichés that question the victim and
reinforce the dominant patriarchal discourse.
GV victim vulnerability increases exponentially when the female victim is a foreigner and,
particularly, when she does not have a good command of Spanish or speak the language at
all. In this situation, the interpreter is indispensable to ensure that the victim's rights are
respected and that she gets appropriate attention. The interpreter is an essential –
communicative– link between the victim and the people working in GV services and
programs, in order to provide better assistance by paying attention to the victim's personal
and social contexts. Therefore, this task should be undertaken by professional interpreters
specialised in GV settings, who must be trained for the particularities and complexities that
GV treatment entails and requires, as well as other professionals like police, social or health
professionals. Our aim is to summarise the basic concepts and significance of GV. We will
take a brief look at the human rights of women, the gender-sex system –on which sexual
[! 9]
discrimination is based–, and clearly define the concept of GV (typology, stages and social
myths). Finally, we will present the basic international indicators related to the conditions of
women around the world (an extremely timely reminder of the current historical context of
inequality).
The Human Rights of Women
This section outlines the basic principles through which human rights are articulated in the
proclamation of justice and human dignity for women, a path not exempt from difficulties
and where there is still much progress to be made.
The implementation and enforcement of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UN
1948) has not only meant the emergence of a new type of universal citizenship, but also the
continued questioning of the "universal validity of androcentrism and of the model of
Western man" (Rico 1996: 7).
In turn, this has led to greater concern and sensitivity towards all forms of diversity. In this
regard, it is essential that we approach the condition of women from a human rights
perspective for three reasons:
(1) human rights have been interpreted from an androcentric perspective where issues
mainly affecting women have been overlooked;
(2) male hegemony is based on social control over women; and
(3) human rights violations also take place within the framework of the sex/gender
system and mainstream cultural values (Rico 1996: 8).
Violence against women is a phenomenon that goes beyond the domestic and personal
spheres. All forms of violence (physical, sexual, psychological and financial), as discussed
later, are interrelated (UN 2009). The violation of any one right implies the non-compliance
of others. Therefore, in recent years, beyond a criminal matter, GV has come to be
understood as a human rights issue that transcends the penal code.
This paradigm shift implies approaching GV from a wider and structural perspective,
whereby it is no longer a matter of guaranteeing the fulfilment of universal rights only, but is
also a way of fostering a more just, egalitarian and prosperous global society. As stated by the
United Nations (UN) Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon at the celebration of International
Women's Day 2014:
Countries with more gender equality have better economic growth. Companies with more
women leaders perform better. Peace agreements that include women are more durable.
Parliaments with more women enact more legislation on key social issues such as health,
education, anti-discrimination and child support. The evidence is clear: equality for women
means progress for all (UN 2014).
It was not until 1979 that the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination
against Women, signed by 185 countries, was adopted. It delves further into the application of
[! 10]
women's human rights in the political, legal and economic, public and private, labour, health,
and education fields; and, explicitly acknowledges the profound magnitude of inequality:
Art. 5. States Parties shall take all appropriate measures:(a) To modify the social and cultural
patterns of conduct of men and women, with a view to achieving the elimination of prejudices
and customary and all other practices which are based on the idea of the inferiority or the
superiority of either of the sexes or on stereotyped roles for men and women (UN 1979).
The UN Commission on the Status of Women has been organising global conferences on
women for more than 35 years (Mexico 1975, Copenhagen 1980, Nairobi 1985, Beijing
1995, and New York 2000 and 2005). In Beijing, 12 strategic action objectives in relation to
women were defined (UN 1995: 18-118): poverty, education and training, health, violence,
armed conflict, economy, power and decision-making, institutional mechanisms for
advancement, human rights, media, environment, and the girl child. The Millennium
Development Goals were adopted in 2010 (UN 2010). Of the eight objectives established,
three are specifically relevant to the conditions of the majority of women globally: (3) to
promote gender equality and empower women; (4) to reduce child mortality; and (5) to
improve maternal health. Although the other five objectives are also, not exclusively but
directly, relevant to women: (1) to eradicate extreme poverty and hunger; (2) to achieve
universal primary education; (6) to combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases; (7) to
ensure environmental sustainability; and, (8) to develop a global partnership for development.
The situation of women, as shown by successive initiatives, has a long and complex way to
go towards the fulfilment of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which transcends
the mere legal framework. A set of indicators that reflect the social reality of women globally
and the urgent need for the initiatives launched within the UN framework are discussed
further on.
The Sex/Gender System in Societies
To address the sex/gender system, it is necessary to reconsider concepts such as gender, equal
opportunities or GV, not as isolated issues, but rather as part of the same reality that defines
the role of women in our societies. This will allow us to identify the origin of the current
situation, since "the concept's efficacy lies in its ability to recognise the reality that it names.
To gain a proper understanding of the gender concept, it needs to be stressed that, behind this
category, there is a social referent: that of women as a collective" (Cobo 2005: 250).
Accordingly, gender is a category of indisputable analysis in social sciences, and the sex/
gender system is a reference to the types of relationships established between women and
men within a society. The sex/gender system underlies patriarchy, a concept introduced from
feminist theory, which states that social organisation (the driving force behind the cultural,
political and economic systems, and individual spheres) is based on the domination of men
over women. The origin of violence does not lie in family ties, but rather in the condition of
being a woman:
[!11 ]
The woman is attacked because she is a woman, not because she is a wife, a mother or a
homemaker; for this reason, abuse often begins prior to the commencement of the family or
domestic relationship (during courtship), and does not end when the domestic or family
relationship is terminated. We should not confuse the means with the motives: the family or
domestic relationship is only the setting in which cohabitation between a man and a woman
occurs (Lorente 2001: 38 –own translation).
Half of the world's population is comprised of a group with chronic problems of exclusion,
economic exploitation and social subordination. Hierarchical and asymmetric social groups
are stratified and shaped within this context not only in terms of their social position based on
gender, but also according to social class, race, ethnicity or sexual orientation. Moreover,
although the notion of gender has been recently questioned by postmodernist and
poststructuralist views, there is nevertheless no doubt about the historical fact that woman
have traditionally been subject to discrimination, and therefore, to an unequal distribution of
opportunities.
The "sex/gender system" concept was coined by Rubin (1975) who defines it as "the set of
arrangements by which a society transforms biological sexuality into products of human
activity, and in which these transformed sexual needs are satisfied" (1975: 159).
Benhabib (1997) specifies and clarifies this sex/gender system as follows:
the gender-sex system is not a contingent but an essential way in which social reality is
organized, symbolically divided, and experienced. By the "gender-sex" system, I mean the
social-historical, symbolic constitution, and interpreting of the differences of the sexes
(Benhabib 1997: 739).
Upon the biological nature that endows women and men with different sexual and
reproductive organs, certain social and cultural features are constructed, which are
attributable to males and females. Since the 1950s, a distinction has been made between two
concepts that had traditionally been united. It was at this point that social sciences defined
both terms. 'Sex' is conceptualised as the biological differences between male and female
(these are biological characteristics: external and internal genital organs, the specific
underlying endocrinology, as well as differences on the basis of reproductive functions); and,
'gender' as the social prescriptions constructed in each culture on the basis of anatomical
differences, the set of ideas, beliefs and representations attributed to females and males.
Gender is characterised by being learned, and therefore, its features change over time and are
not configured homogeneously around the world, but rather vary across cultures and
societies. Gender is constructed through a set of differentiated norms for each sex, developed
by society according to its needs and imposed on individuals from birth as a model of
identification. This occurs through a process of differential socialisation whereby men and
women are positioned with different purposes, values and opportunities. Furthermore, gender
is socially constructed and sex is biologically determined, as originally stated by the feminist
Simone de Beauvoir (1973: 301) who asserted that: "One is not born, but rather becomes, a
woman."In addition, resources (political, economic, cultural or authoritative, among others)
are distributed according to gender.
[! 12]
Stereotypes are preconceived images of people who share similar characteristics (the social
truism attributed to a group of people). Stereotypes involve ways of seeing and understanding
reality according to parameters that are not ideologically neutral, but instead respond to
values and value judgements disseminated over time and that, in many cases, are justified as
part of a tradition or as something natural and unquestionable. In this respect, gender
stereotypes are based on the following claim:
• To be born a man implies: being strong, invulnerable, having restrained emotions, with
few emotional needs, and taking greater initiative that exposes him, to a higher degree, to
challenges.
• To be born a woman implies: being the weak and secondary sex, vulnerable, expressing
emotions, having greater emotional needs, being provided with physical attributes of
lesser strength and ability that expose them to greater hazards.
Although social commonplaces do not always prescribe the way each individual thinks or
acts –nor can the great achievements in terms of equality be denied– it is also true that, in
many contexts, women are still faced with many obstacles and difficulties to access the
echelons of power and the shared use of public and private spaces, as well as to achieve a
progressive context for effective and genuine equality. Discrimination in Western societies
persists in invisible and implicit forms, where the clearest and most sexist (politically
incorrect) forms emerge in less obvious and ambiguous ways.
"Modern sexism" is characterised by the denial of discrimination, antagonism to the demands
of women, and resentment of the assistance policies that have been achieved. These conflicts,
between egalitarian values and negative sentiments, are conceptualised in what has been
defined as "neo-sexism" (Tougas et al. 1995). This concept states opposition to open
discrimination but defends the idea that women have already achieved equality, and
therefore, there is no need for any policy to reinforce it, thereby hindering effective or
genuine equality. The asymmetry of the sexes is, in this manner, blurred in its patentest form
and occurs in less apparent and persuasive ways. Traditional sexism (Allport 1961) is
characterised by prejudice towards women and is easily identifiable (aversion and/or clear
hostility –also referred to as "hostile sexism"). This is reflected in developed societies with
other behaviours and discourses of lesser intensity that hinder the implementation of genuine
equality, known as "ambivalent sexism" (Glick and Fiske1996). This type of sexism poses the
difficulty that, being a covert and non-aversive manifestation, it is difficult to perceive but
plays an important role in perpetuating gender stereotypes.
Gender-based Violence Definition, Typology and Stages
The use of the term 'gender violence' is recent: it has been consolidated since the 1990s
through initiatives such as the World Conference on Human Rights held in Vienna in 1993
(UN 1993a), the Declaration on the Elimination of Violence against Women in the same year
(UN 1993b), the Inter-American Convention on the Prevention, Punishment and Eradication
[! 13]
of Violence against Women (OAS 1994) or the World Conference on Women in Beijing (UN
1995). It is the result of women's increasingly visible and broad participation in the human
rights movement, as well as of the questioning of the essentialist view of social hierarchies
and the female subordination as something normal.
The term 'gender violence' has its precedent in the Declaration on the Elimination of Violence
against Women:
Art. 1. [...] any act of gender-based violence that results in, or is likely to result in, physical,
sexual or psychological harm or suffering to women, including threats of such acts, coercion or
arbitrary deprivation of liberty, whether occurring in public or in private life (UN 1993b).
However, it was at the Fourth World Conference on Women (Beijing 1995) that the term
'gender violence' was coined under the premise that:
Art. 112. Violence against women is an obstacle to the achievement of the objectives of
equality, development and peace. Violence against women both violates and impairs or nullifies
the enjoyment by women of their human rights and fundamental freedoms (UN 1995).
According to international law, governments must exercise due diligence to guarantee
women's rights (in accordance with the principle of non-discrimination); have policies and
plans in place to enforce these rights; and, provide redress and reparations when a violation
of these rights occurs. As a consequence, at the European level, the Compensation to Crime
Victims Directive (Council of Europe 2004) and the Council of Europe Convention on
Preventing and Combating Violence against Women and Domestic Violence, known as the
Istanbul Convention (Council of Europe 2011), were adopted. In Spain, the Basic Act 1/2004,
of December 28, on Comprehensive Protection Measures against Gender-based Violence
identifies this violence as an expression of discrimination, the situation of inequality, and the
power relations prevailing between the sexes (Spain 2004), limited to the scope of the
couple's relationship, and not encompassing other aggression by a man towards a woman.
It is noted that the existence of conflict should not be confused with that of violence. Conflict
involves opposing perspectives. Aggressiveness is the first or one of the responses to conflict,
however, violence occurs when intimidation, aggressive or discriminatory language, or
physical force are used to impose criteria on someone. The dimension of violence is deeper
than that of aggression, as it constitutes a direct attempt against a person's personal, physical
or sexual integrity. Although direct violence is the most visible and easily identifiable form of
GV, we cannot ignore the fact that the submerged base of the iceberg that underpins this
violence is broader and more persistent. It encompasses other forms of violence such as
cultural violence (e.g. those justified in traditions) and structural violence (e.g. in the form of
unequal work place conditions).
[! 14]
direct violence
visible
invisible
cultural violence
structural violence
!
Forms of gender violence (Galtung 2001)
Historically, the paradigm of human rights has been based on the assumption that the civil
and political rights of the individual find their place in public life, which has led to violations
occurring in private life or within the family unit being ignored: GV constitutes a violation of
the principles enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UN 1948), and
therefore, an expression of inequality. To understand its cultural and structural dimension, it
is essential to acknowledge that violence against women does not have a biological origin
and is not a strictly domestic problem; but rather, a gender-based issue:
This is an essential theoretical variable to understand that gender differences are not the reason
for antagonism, that this is not a form of domestic violence or violence by who is physically
superior (man) over the weaker sex (woman), but the result of an inter-temporal discrimination
that originates in a social structure of patriarchal nature (Maqueda 2006: 2 –own translation).
For this reason, from a legal point of view, the use of terms such as "domestic violence",
"violence in the home", "family violence" and "conjugal violence" are considered
inappropriate since they ignore the gender component that defines this type of violence
(Debén 2006). Firstly, these terms seem to indicate the possible existence of certain
reciprocity, according to which women and men are both victims and perpetrators. Secondly,
because each of these definitions excludes other forms of violence: domestic violence (which
does not occur in private space), conjugal violence (inflicted when the relationship ceases or
within an analogous affective relationship), etc.
1. Typologies and phases
The three forms of violence proposed by Galtung (2001) (direct, structural and cultural) are
closely interrelated, one leading to the others cyclically. This has certain specific effects on
the way violence itself is exercised between individuals (and which appear in each of the
forms mentioned above). This section discusses this violence in its most visible dimension,
the characteristics that make it possible to identify a series of typologies and stages.
According to the Council of Europe (2011), direct violence consists of the following:
• Physical violence: this includes all types of corporal aggression (pushing, hitting,
attacking with weapons, biting, burning, strangling, mutilating, etc.).
[! 15]
• Sexual violence: includes any non-consensual sexual activity (forced viewing or
involvement in pornography, forced intercourse, trafficking and exploitation in the
sex industry, etc.).
• Psychological violence: a broad notion, which recognises multiple forms of
intellectual or moral aggression (threats, isolation, contempt, intimidation and insults
in public, etc.).
• Economic abuse: unequal access to shared resources (denying access to money,
preventing access to a job, to education, etc.).
• Structural violence: a term closely related to economic abuse, but which also
includes invisible and intangible barriers against the fulfilment of the possible
options within the individual's basic rights. It is based on the existence of firmly
entrenched barriers replicated daily in the social system (e.g. the power relations that
generate and legitimise inequality).
• Spiritual violence: a concept incorporating behaviours that force another person to
adhere to a particular cultural or religious belief system, or, aimed at eroding or
destroying another person's belief through ridicule or punishment.
The existence of different forms of violence also implies that it does not arise suddenly in
most cases; it typically begins gradually and in any of the different forms. A number of signs
have been identified that often precede the onset of violence, including: attempts to control
and isolate; verbal aggression; emotional blackmail; coercion; lack of acknowledgement of
one's own mistakes; various forms of humiliation; and, undermining and disregarding the
opinions and needs of the couple. These signs may go unnoticed to the victims and the
behaviour may not be obvious to the victims' inner circle, thus undermining the possibility of
reacting to it. Walker (1979) proposes understanding the way violence works as a recurring
cycle during the time in which two people have some kind of relationship, in order to
comprehend how a woman can suffer the violence and remain in the relationship over time.
This is known as the "cycle of violence" and consists of three phases:
• Tension building: during this process, the man's tension escalates; he is irritable and
seems angry for no apparent reason. He does not provide any explanation and denies
his attitude, at times blaming his partner. He begins to internalise the idea that his
partner is to blame for the unpleasant situations.
• Acute battering incident: in this stage, the man punishes his partner harshly. His
expectations of her are not fulfilled and she is punished for not conforming to a
'gender mandate'. The release of tension can be expressed in various forms and
degrees: insults, breakage of objects, physical aggressions, drunkenness, absolute
indifference, etc.
• Remorse: the man admits his bad behaviour convincingly, experiencing a change
that instils in the woman the false belief that it is an isolated event and will not be
[! 16]
repeated. She gives him another opportunity in the belief that she can help him to
change. This phase is also referred to as the "honeymoon", since a period of
emotional manipulation begins which emulates the idea of returning to the beginning
of the relationship, expressing affection, kindness, attention, etc. This phase will
gradually fade and the tension will slowly increase, starting the cycle again.
Remorse
"honeymoon"
Tension building
CICLO
de la
violencia
Acute battering incident
!
Cycle of violence (Walker 1979)
There are three fundamental characteristics in the cycle of violence (Medina 2006). Firstly,
the more times the cycle is completed, the less time it takes to start over. Secondly, the
intensity and severity of the violence increases progressively over time. Finally, the remorse
phase tends to shorten and gradually disappears. In this way, the use of violence becomes a
habit and the cycle tends to repeat itself endlessly.
2. Myths about women victims of violence
Despite the enforcement of Spain's Basic Act 1/2004 of 28 December, on Comprehensive
Protection Measures against Gender-based Violence, egalitarian advancements achieved by
feminist movements are disputed (Cobo 2011; Falcón 2014). Moreover, the spread and
reinforcement of social clichés, which sustain the more traditional gender stereotypes, can be
seen. If a woman suffers violence at the hands of her partner and decides to go to the
authorities, she faces a series of stereotyped preconceptions (Larrauri 2008), also shared by
many experts, which jeopardise her chances of being attended to in a professional and
prejudice-free manner. These include:
• The irrational woman (who withdraws the complaint). The victim is treated as
psychologically abnormal.
• The instrumental woman (who makes a complaint to keep the apartment). A
judgement of the victim's intentions is made, whereby it is understood that the only
reason the woman denounces the incident is to obtain a benefit in return. For
example, an illegal immigrant woman that makes a denouncement in order to 'obtain
documents'.
[! 17]
• The untruthful woman (who falsely denounces). The woman is perceived as evil. It
is common to mistake the existence of shelved and/or withdrawn cases (on the basis
of insufficient evidence and/or the victim does not wish to continue with the process)
with the fact that the denunciation was false (knowing that abuse has not occurred).
The latter is punishable by law and the prosecuting authority must act ex officio if it
considers that the woman has committed this crime. In practice, there is no sufficient
evidence to suggest this occurs. However, doubt is planted and the responsibility,
from an inoperative system, is transferred to the woman whereby she is considered
guilty.
• The punitive woman (who provokes her partner to approach her). Victims are
increasingly penalised for breaching precautionary measures and restraining orders.
This happens as the result of contradictory requirements imposed by the penal
system.
• The vengeful woman (who wants to further punish the man). The most commonly
repeated phrase that "for the same behaviour, the man receives greater punishment
than the woman". The alleged comparison between a blow by a man and woman
ignores the social context where the actions take place (higher probability of injury
and greater impact on the person's life due to the fear produced, deriving from
stronger force).
This poses a challenge for the interpreter since, like any social cliché or truism, it can lead
him or her to unconsciously judge and assess the situation based on preconceived models. We
cannot ignore that all of us, to a greater or lesser extent, are influenced by the gender
stereotypes that operate in society, as well as by the myths about women who seek remedy
from the penal system. In highly emotional contexts, we must also take into account that
unfamiliarity with the language and setting (of the complaint, court case, etc.) poses an
additional danger, since our subconscious and cognitive response takes on a greater relevance
in our attitude towards the situation. Therefore, it is easy to make erroneous judgements of
intentions, biased assessments of language and its motivations, omit information considered
unimportant, etc. For this reason, it is necessary to be aware that the interpreter's decisionmaking in these contexts must be duly considered, and above all, exercised with scrupulous
prudence and responsibility.
International Indicators on the Condition of Women
This section provides basic data on the condition of women from an international perspective
in order to understand the socio-economic, political and health contexts that women come
from, and which are key to identifying the causes and consequences of violence. Not
knowing the background context on which GV is based implies disregarding that women's
socialisation is defined by their roles in the societies of origin, their living conditions and
empowerment prospects. This context is particularly relevant in cross-cultural settings.
[! 18]
Consequently, this section addresses the type of indicators that have been considered the most
relevant in order to understand the reality of women in their countries of origin and their
situation in Spain. These indicators reflect the living conditions in a particular territory and
help us to understand the reasons for migration and the possibilities of access to, and
integration into, the labour market in the host country.
Although we know that GV is not restricted to specific social classes, educational levels or
working conditions, there are a number of key factors that make women more vulnerable.
Additionally, in the case of many migrant women, this vulnerability is greater due to their
economic dependence on their partners, low skill levels that hinder access to the labour
market, or irregular residency.
The migrant population in Spain is estimated at 9.92% of the total population. Within this
group 49.3% are women, of which more than 84.6% are over 15 years of age (INE 2017a).
This information is relevant, since it must be taken into account that GV in Spanish
legislation refers to relations between the women and "their present or former spouses or by
men with whom they maintain or have maintained analogous affective relations, with or
without cohabitation" (Article 1 of the Basic Act 1/2004 of 28 December, on Comprehensive
Protection Measures against Gender-based Violence - Spain 2004), that is so say, it refers
primarily to adults.
According to the official data (INE 2017a), it is estimated that 1,882,319 women over 15
years of age are foreigner, for more than 70% of these migrant women, Spanish is not the
native or habitual language in their countries of origin. More than 4 to 6.5% of these women
would also be undocumented (which restrains access to health, police, judicial and welfare
protection services). Data also shows that from the top 20 countries of origin, 13 correspond
to non Spanish-speaking countries4:
Country
Number of women
Country
Number of women
Romania
293,474
France
46,389
Morocco
213,840
Ukraine
46,373
United Kingdom
140,082
Russian Federation
41,146
Italy
75,987
Portugal
36,904
Germany
68,152
Brazil
36,300
China
67,447
Poland
31,682
Bulgaria
55,439
—
—
Foreign population by nationality from the top non Spanish-speaking countries by number of women
(aged 15 years and over). Source: INE (2017a).
4
Top 20 countries ordered by number of migrant female population in Spain: Romania, Morocco,
United Kingdom, Italy, Colombia, Germany, China, Ecuador, Bulgaria, France, Ukraine, Bolivia,
Russian Federation, Portugal, Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay, Poland, Peru, Dominican Republic.
[! 19]
These figures should be framed around the following: (1) in countries such as Ecuador,
Bolivia or Peru, there is a significant presence of other languages, even though Spanish is
also the official language; (2) these figures do not include tourists (surpassing 75.5 million
annually) (INE 2017b) who can stay up to three months in the country, this being the most
common form of entry for most immigrants; and, (3) neither do the figures recognise the
undocumented migrants who enter as a tourist and stay beyond three months (Izquierdo 2008:
621). This population is twice as vulnerable due to its irregular status, and includes trafficked
women. With respect to GV figures, it is necessary to specify that only those cases with
further undertaking of interim measures are registered in the Central Registry for the
Protection of Victims of Domestic Violence (which reports to the Ministry of Justice).
Examples include cases where there is a sentence, precautionary measure or protective order,
(that is, in cases where there is an explicit legal recognition). Therefore, unreported cases,
allegations awaiting trial, and withdrawn or dismissed allegations are not taken into account.
Consequently, only those victims characterised as judicial matter are contemplated. In Spain,
67.4% of female victims involved in a GV court case were Spanish citizens and 32.6% were
foreigners from diverse countries, but the average of female victims –per thousand women
among aged 14 years and over– was three times higher among women born abroad (3.1) than
among women born in Spain (1,1) (INE 2015).
The selected socio-economic indicators are as follows: (1) access to healthcare (as a basic
indicator of the living conditions of women); (2) literacy and formal education (level of
training for entry into the labour market); (3) working conditions and economic
empowerment (attitudes and previous experiences with regard to financial independence); (4)
level of institutional corruption (which constrains the victim's trust in institutional services in
which the interpreter will act as liaison); and, (5) indicators of abuse and GV (level of
violence against women in which they have been socialised and have experienced directly or
indirectly).
1. Access to healthcare
Access to healthcare is directly related to the development of public healthcare systems this
depends directly on a country's income level; with the exception of Cuba (WHO 2017b).
Nonetheless, there is a prevalence of diseases and situations that put women at higher risk.
One aspect in which women's health has been best monitored has to do with their sexuality.
This type of indicator combines two principles: the quality and availability of resources
assigned exclusively to women, as well as their decision-making possibility to make choices
regarding their sexual and reproductive life.
The percentage of women aged between 15 and 49, married or in de facto relationships, who
are using at least one contraceptive method, regardless of kind (contraceptive prevalence),
shows important geographical and economic differences. Although in America, Europe and
the Western Pacific the average use of contraceptive methods is more than 70%, in subSaharan African countries the rate is less than 27%. According to income level, there is a
[! 20]
clear division between low income countries (average 46.4%), medium and high income
countries (74.3%) (WHO 2014a).
It should also be noted that, for example, women subject to violence by their partners are 2.6
times more likely to suffer from depression or anxiety, and 2.3 to have alcohol use disorders;
1.5 times more likely to acquire HIV in some regions; twice as likely to have an abortion or
16% more likely to have a low birth weight baby. Moreover, 35% of these women have
experienced sexual violence; and 38% of violent deaths were committed by their partners,
and 7% by non-partners (WHO 2013b).
2. Literacy and education
The situation of women regarding education policies has improved significantly in recent
decades. In addition to recognising women's universal right to education, initiatives relating
to education have also been motivated, in part, by increasing specialisation needs of the
industry and by the positive effect of a higher educational level of women on the community
(and families) as a whole. This makes them important subjects of social transformation on
their own and due to their role as mothers and caretakers of the home (considering that 92,5%
of women in the world between 40-44 years old have given birth at some point in their lives)
(UN 2016).
In general terms, school enrolment rates have increased. Although in 126 countries the gender
parity index for school life expectancy (from primary to tertiary education) for women is
positive, it still remains negative in 70 countries (UNESCO 2016). Additionally, 63.1% of the
entire adult female population aged 15 years and over is illiterate in the Regions of the
Millenium Development Goals. Consequently, educational progress is hampered by a
generational component that has a significant impact. The impact of educational progress on
access to the labour market further reflects a less encouraging reality.
3. Working conditions and economic empowerment
Women's access to the labour market is characterised by poorer conditions than those of their
male counterparts. This implies that women are more restricted in their ability to enjoy higher
financial independence and autonomy. As a result, they face greater dependence on their
spouse or partner, which is further increased when combined with caring for descendants or
elders; when having to take care of the family as a widow; or, following abandonment by
one's partner (due to separation, war or immigration).
For example, the female workforce participation rate (regardless of the type of work and
workday) is lower compared to the male rate, in addition to a wage gap with substantial
differences between countries.
[! 21]
female
male
gap
80
60
40
Ukraine
UK
Spain
Russian Fed.
!
Romania
Portugal
Poland
Italy
Morocco
Germany
France
China
Bulgaria
0
Brazil
20
Labour activity rate (by gender, aged 15 years and over, projection for 2021) and female wage gap %
(by monthly earnings, 2014-2015). Source: ILO (2017), UNECE (2017a).5
Activity rates are not only lower but, beyond other considerations (such as the number of
hours worked, job type, qualification, inactivity rate, etc.), women's wages also show a
significant difference in percentage compared with monthly wages among men (ranging, at
least, between 9.9 and 32.1 points). The feminisation of poverty is a phenomenon that, far
from being eradicated, responds to the structural context that makes women in situations of
poverty, economic crisis or family breakdown more vulnerable. Women's economic
opportunities are not only restricted by their situation in the labour market, but respond to a
multi-variable reality whereby we must also consider: (1) access to land, housing and other
productive resources; (2) access to productive services; and, (3) access to social protection
(UN 2009).
4. Trust in institutions
The way an institution's functioning is perceived is an important factor to take into
consideration when working with the public services attending to female GV victims. For
instance, corruption indices illustrate the public’s perception of institutions, which determines
the degree of trust and expectations. The four fields related to GV victim’s attention (legal,
health, police and social) where interpreting tasks are carried out are, in many cases, marked
by a negative perception. Thus, corruption in public institutions and services is considered to
be a widespread problem. An assessment of 107 countries, seeking to identify the most
corrupt institutions among a total of 12, found that the police ranked second (after the
political parties); the judiciary third; the public administration branch (including social
services) fourth; and, health care fifth (Transparency International 2013).
5
No female wave gap data available for: Brazil, China and Morocco.
[! 22]
In relation to the 12 countries that contribute to the largest female immigrant population from
non Spanish-speaking countries (noting that the origin of foreign GV victims is not limited to
those countries), the results concerning the perception of corruption are equally significant in
the four action fields, namely; legal, health, police and the public administration entities.
Country
Judiciary
Health
Police
Public
administration
Germany
2.6
3.4
2.7
3.4
Brazil
3.4
3.5
4
3.3
Bulgaria
4.4
4.2
3.9
3.4
China
n/a
n/a
n/a
n/a
Spain
3.5
2.3
3.1
3.3
France
3
2.8
3.3
3.4
Italy
3.4
3.6
2.9
3.8
Morocco
4
4.2
4.2
4.1
Portugal
3.9
3
3.2
3.4
Romania
3.7
3.6
3.5
3.4
Russia Federation
4.4
4.1
4.5
4.6
Ukraine
4.5
4.2
4.4
4.3
United Kingdom
2.7
2.6
3
3.3
TOTAL
3.6
3.3
3.7
3.6
Corruption perception scale (1 not at all corrupt, 5 extremely corrupt). Source: Transparency
International (2013).
Excluding China (no available data) the rest of the countries included here all scored high on
perceived corruption (2.5 and above save for Spain's health sector). Additionally, many
countries surpass the global average per field: six countries in the judiciary, eight in the
health sector, five in police, and five in public administration. The institutions and services, in
which interpreters work and on which the victims depend directly, are challenged.
Interpreters have to perform their communication work, between the victim and the
institutions, under these circumstances.
5. Abuse and gender violence indicators
World Health Organization (WHO) data confirm that the incidence of sexual violence within
and outside the couple relationship is widespread among women aged 15-69 years. These
data refer to sexual violence defined within the couple as: being physically forced to have
sexual intercourse due to fear of partner and/or being forced to engage in sexual acts
considered humiliating or degrading. Or outside the couple relationship: the experience of
being forced to perform any unwanted sexual act with someone other than the husband or
partner (WHO 2013a: 6).
[! 23]
The incidence of violence within couples is a global phenomenon with significant differences
existing between geographic areas. For example, in Western Europe and East Asia, the
average prevalence is below 20%, while in areas such as Central Sub-Saharan Africa it
exceeds 65%. In comparison, for sexual violence outside the couple, the average incidence is
lower, with the lowest values in South Asia (3.3%) and the highest in Southern Sub-Saharan
Africa (17.4%) (WHO 2014).
In both cases, the prevalence of violence against women presents a complex international
profile conditioned by legal and cultural factors – relating to how women are perceived
within communities – and economic factors. The distinction between violence outside or
within the couple can be understood based on the attitudes and expectations of the woman
within the household as wife (and mother). A WHO study (2005: 12) showed the way in
which women themselves internalise domestic violence. In response to the question about the
reasons they consider "wife-beating" justifiable, it shows that: first, there is a variation
between countries; second, a greater acceptance in rural compared to urban areas; and, third,
a clear scaling of the motives that would justify the aggression (in order: wife not complete
housework, wife disobeys her husband, wife refuses sex, wife asks about other women,
husband suspects infidelity, wife is unfaithful). These data reflect the degree of social
acceptance of domestic violence among women. This shows the existence of a normalisation
of intimate partner violence, the tolerance levels towards it, and the difficulty of initiating an
allegation process.
One or more of the reasons mencioned
Accepts none of the reasons
100
75
50
U.R. Tanzania (prov.)
U.R. Tanzania (city)
Thailand (prov.)
Thailand (city)
Samoa
Peru (prov.)
Serbia & Montenegro (city)
!
Peru (city)
Naminia (city)
Japan (city)
Ethiopia (prov.)
Brazil (prov.)
Brazil (city)
Bangladesh (prov.)
0
Blangladesh (city)
25
Women agreeing with specific reasons that justify wife-beating, %. Source: WHO (2005).
It is not just a question of subjective perception or the attitudes of women themselves towards
GV. On the criminal front, the data on serious assault, homicide and robbery show that the
[! 24]
victim percentage figures are often men (with the exception of Italy where this tendency is
reversed), except in the case of sexual assault in which case the victims are always mainly
(and by far) women.
Serious assault
Homicide
Robbery
Sexual assault
100
75
50
25
Ukraine
UK
Spain
Romania
Italy
Germany
!
France
Bulgaria
0
Women with respect to men by crime type %. Source: UNECE (2017b)6 .
Within the European Union, it is estimated that over a one-year period 7% (12 million) of
women aged between 18 and 74 years have been subjected to physical violence and 2% (3.7
million) to sexual violence (FRA 2014).
Summary
Of the total of these female victims, two thirds were born in Spain and one third abroad;
however, by geographic area of origin, the victim rate (among those aged 14 and over) is
inverted being three times higher among those born abroad. Of the female immigrant
population, over 70% are from non Spanish-speaking countries, of which more than 4 to
6.5% would also be undocumented (which restrains access to health, police, judicial and
welfare protection services).
Beyond the legal consideration of GV and the measures and means available to combat it,
women's acceptance of GV in their lives is determined by their communities' expectations
(roles and obligations), as well as by how they internalise their role as part of their
communities and families (as partners, wives and/or mothers). In addition to their significant
social value, their objective possibilities of autonomy and economic empowerment must be
included. The condition of women in an international context displays a complex image
characterised by a set of distinctive pillars:
• Sexual health, a basic aspect of women's living conditions globally and that derives
from their access to health care resources, is worrying. Sexual health, access to
contraceptive methods, prevention of sexually transmitted diseases, etc., is directly
6
No data available for: Brazil, China, Morocco, Poland, Portugal and Russian Federation.
[! 25]
related to victim’s country of origin, socio-economic situation and position within the
couple relationship.
• Their possibility to access educational resources is a generational issue that sees
women aged over 15 years at a disadvantage.
• Working conditions and economic empowerment: the labour activity rate is
persistently lower among women and marked by a wage gap of different magnitudes
but is always negative.
• Given the perceived levels of corruption in many countries of origin, it cannot be
assumed that there is a favourable predisposition and trust towards institutional
services (social, police, judicial or health).
• The level of violence against women is a socialisation factor with variable intensity:
they experience it directly or indirectly. Violence against women is a global
phenomenon with a higher prevalence among couples.
In relation to GV:
• The term "gender violence" is understood as any form of violence that causes
physical, sexual or psychological harm or suffering in both private and public
settings. Several categories of violence are determined: physical, sexual,
psychological, economic, structural, and spiritual.
• GV constitutes a violation of the principles enshrined in the Universal Declaration
of Human Rights.
• The social myths surrounding GV victims seek to discredit and disallow women in
their right to access effective justice. Similarly, they limit our ability to understand
the complexity of the condition of women.
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[! 29]
INTRODUCTION TO INTERPRETING IN GENDER VIOLENCE
CONTEXTS: BASIC CONCEPTS OF INTERPRETING, CONTEXTS,
COMPETENCIES AND ETHICS
[pages in original: 55-105]
María Isabel Abril Martí1,Carmen Toledano Buendía2, Xus Ugarte Ballester3, María
Magdalena Fernández Pérez2
University of Granada1, University of La Laguna2, The University of Vic – Central University of Catalonia3
Translated by Matthew Millis
Monash University
Interpreting in Gender Violence Contexts
1. General features
As pointed out in the previous section, Public Service Interpreting (PSI) is a mode of
interpreting named after the situational context in which it takes place. This activity thus falls
within the public services sector, principally health, social, legal and educational services.
Within each of these fields, interpreting may be required in different situations of interaction
that respond to more specific contexts and allow us to distinguish between what might be
termed subtypes and sub-modalities. Examples would be interpreting in police or correctional
settings within the field of legal interpreting; or mental health interpreting within the field of
medical interpreting. All of these specific areas require that interpreters have specialised
training in addition to their general interpreting training, given the particularities in subject
matter, standard operating procedures and protocols, participants, etc. present in each one.
This section focuses on one such specific context in PSI: interpreting in GV contexts, which
is the interpreting done in all of the services that a community or a society provides to GV
victims with the objective of helping them to escape from an abusive situation.
Thanks to the advances made in social justice, Spain offers a series of measures, services and
provisions in the area of prevention, assistance, protection and recovery to women who are
GV victims. In the case of foreign women who live in or visit this country and suffer some
type of violence because of their gender, access to these resources may be limited and even,
[! 30]
at times, impossible because the victim does not speak or understand Spanish or the official
regional language, a factor which creates an additional barrier to reporting abuse and finding
a way out of the situation. In these cases, the provision of language services is fundamental.
The interpreter acts as an interlingual mediator between the victim and the various service
providers that intervene during the entire process of care and assistance for the victims of GV.
This type of interpreting can take place in any of the intervention stages; from the detection
of abuse, its reporting and the provision of information about the different resources
available, to treatment and even follow-up when the victim is considered to be a survivor.
One characteristic of GV victim assistance and intervention that interpreters must take into
account is the multidisciplinary nature of this context, since the resources at the woman's
disposition involve several different sectors. In particular, there are three main fields in
which assistance is provided and in which the interpreter will therefore work: the legal,
psychosocial and health fields.
In each of these fields several agencies and institutions make resources available to victims
through different service providers in diverse settings and locations. This gives rise to a wide
variety of communicative situations in terms of subject matter, participants, level of
formality, objectives of the interactions, standard operating protocols, etc. Such variety and
multidisciplinarity also characterise the work of the interpreter whose professional
practice, consequently, cannot be circumscribed to any one field of the PSI
specialisation.
2. Fields of intervention with victims in which interpreting services may be required
The fields of intervention will be briefly outlined, describing some of the common features of
the communicative interactions in terms of participants, location and communicative purpose.
a. The legal field
Regarding interventions in the legal field a distinction must be made between the police stage
and the judicial stage. In the police stage, essential protection and security services are
provided to victims. Besides the victim, the participants involved in the different interactions
may be police officers or agents that belong to the different state security bodies (national,
regional or local police forces or the Civil Guard), preferably with specialised training in the
care of female victims of violence. Interactions in this stage can have different
communicative objectives, including the essential tasks of taking statements, assessing risk,
protecting victims or doing follow-up in the later stages of intervention. The interaction can
take place in police facilities (police stations or Civil Guard headquarters) or where the
assault occurred, when the agents arrive.
The judicial stage of the intervention with GV victims refers to all interactions between the
victim and legal professionals—such as judges, public prosecutor's staff, lawyers—the
purpose of which is to protect and defend the rights of women. These interactions usually
[! 31]
take place in judicial buildings such as the courts for violence against women or the police
courts and the communicative situations in which the interpreter may be involved include:
lawyers giving legal assistance to the victim, judges taking the victim's complaint or the
interrogation of the victim in the courtroom during the trial.
Legal advice can be provided to the victim outside of this context as well, as part of the
comprehensive assistance provided by the specialised GV centres. In this case it is given by
the centre’s lawyer, although this person will not necessarily be the victim’s legal
representative. In this case the dynamics and the characteristics of the communicative
situation differ in terms of the degree of formality or rigidity that characterise the general
form of interactions in the legal field.
In this area, both at the police stage and the judicial stage, the interpreter should be prepared
to offer language services not only to the victim but also to the other participants. For
example, in cases where the victim is a minor or is disabled, a secondary interlocutor, who
might be one of the people exercising parental authority, the victim's legal guardian or the
director of the Centre, would participate in the communicative situation. Also, it is possible
that the interpreter will have to translate for the perpetrator or the accused, for example, when
taking the accused person's statement or when taking statements by any witnesses who do not
speak Spanish.
b. The health field
The second field in which interpreters in GV contexts may be called upon to perform their
role is the one related to health. Within this context we also make a distinction between two
areas: one covers health services for victims of violence, including both primary and
specialised care, as provided by local primary care centres and hospitals. The other covers
forensic assistance, which is carried out in legal contexts. In addition to the victim, the
participants in these interactions will be healthcare personnel, including nurses, physicians
and medical examiners.
The purpose of the health services is to provide the victim with medical care, whether
primary or specialised care (essentially gynaecological and mental health), to evaluate any
harm or injuries, to assess the victim’s situation and ensure her safety, as they activate the
relevant protection measures in each situation. This stage is also fundamental in the detection
of violence.
Forensic intervention falls between the health and the legal fields. The aim of these
interactions with the medical examiner is to perform the necessary medical examinations to
investigate and evaluate the evidence of abuse by way of a physical and psychological
examination and evaluation. This allows the examiner to issue a report concerning physical
and psychological injuries or their consequences. The examination may take place either in a
hospital—when healthcare personnel request the presence of a medical examiner in an
emergency—or in the comprehensive assessment units associated with the court.
[! 32]
The interpreter should know that in the forensic context, as in the judicial or police settings, it
is possible that he or she will have to interpret for the alleged perpetrator as well, given that
the medical examiner will likely perform an examination of the accused to make a ruling on
the individual's personality traits, state of mind or any possible physical or psychological
disorders.
c. The psychosocial field
Finally, the psychosocial field refers to resources dedicated to providing information,
counselling and support towards the victim's recovery, services in which interpreters may be
required to provide language services to foreign victims. The primary participants in the
interactions in this area are social workers, who perform tasks mainly concerned with
information, social evaluation and assessment, and psychologists, who carry out the
psychological evaluation and assist victims and survivors of violence in their recovery. Social
intervention is provided in social care settings such as the Social Work Units in primary care
centres, in the courts, social services and centres specialised in GV victim assistance, or in
temporary accommodations such as shelters or transitional housing. This area also includes
the immediate care services that are provided through the emergency response protocol. In
this case, when these services are activated, the service providers will go wherever is
necessary to have direct contact with the woman, so as to provide the service. It is also
possible that a worker from these services will accompany the woman in the process of
informing the appropriate authority of the situation or of the risk of GV, during the filing of
the complaint, the request for protective measures, the medical examination and the actions
that must be taken just after the medical examination and initial steps have been completed.
In all cases the interpreter will accompany the providers and the victim.
It should also be noted that included within the immediate care services are the telephone
hotlines 112 and 016. These hotlines offer language services in the form of telephone
interpreting. The interpreting is done by professionals who work for specialised companies
hired to provide these language services.
As for the interactions related to the psychological intervention, their communicative
objective is to evaluate the emotional state of the victim and the harm suffered and to
undertake the intervention needed for her recovery, which may be in individual or group
therapy. As in the health area, part of the psychological intervention takes place in legal
contexts by forensic psychologists, also with the objective of evaluating the victim, her
emotional state and the harm suffered in order to prepare a report.
3. Characteristic features of interpreting in GV contexts
As we have seen in this brief review, the diversity of participants, settings and
communicative situations that characterise GV interpreting makes for great variety not just in
topics and subject matter, each with its own vocabulary and terminology, but also in the
degree of formality, conversational dynamics and turns of talk, the hierarchy of interpersonal
[! 33]
relations and the expectations of participants, etc. Interpreters who work in GV contexts may
go from mediating in very rigid and vertical situations such as legal interrogations to other
more flexible and horizontal situations, such as interactions held in transitional housing; also,
they may have to interpret wide varieties of language, such as the highly specialised register
of a forensic medical report or vulgar or coarse expressions used in the description of the
abuse. Also, their performance and role in the interaction and their degree of visibility and
intervention varies considerably from one context to another, which at times will require the
use of more restrictive interpretation models, while at other times will warrant more
interventionist and participative models.
However, it should be taken into account that despite this diversity, some common features
can be found across all of the interactions and areas.
Firstly, the specialisation of the service providers. The people who provide services to GV
victims are specialists in their field, belong to specialised departments or units within their
organisation or have received specific training courses, not only with the objective of
applying the protocols designed exclusively for intervention with GV victims in each of the
different contexts but also to be familiar with the pertinent legislation and the different
resources available to these women; and above all, to provide services informed by the
gender perspective.
It is evident that this specialisation should also extend to interpreters. Such specific training
not only ensures that the interpreter knows the subject matter and understands the procedures
used by the service providers, and the purpose and objective of each of the communicative
situations in which he or she participates; it also allows the interpreter to intervene with a
perspective of gender, which is of fundamental importance in understanding the dimensions
of GV. Intervening with a gender perspective requires an understanding of the concept of
gender and the relationships of power and inequality that the concept of gender generates in
our societies. It also involves comprehending that the situation of violence affecting a woman
is a result of this inequality and not an isolated behaviour that is justifiable for different
reasons. It is also necessary to know the effects that abuse and violence have on a woman and
how they may shape her behaviour. The practice of interpreting in contexts of GV requires
that the interpreter, like the other professionals who intervene, is able to evaluate his or her
own ideas, beliefs and opinions with respect to GV. This enables him or her to recognise any
prejudices that could prevent him or her from complying with the necessary standards of
neutrality and objectivity. Only in this way is it possible to offer a service based on maximum
respect and understanding; one that does not blame the woman for her situation and revictimise her or culturally justify the violence.
Secondly, another common feature of all interactions with GV victims is the emotional
component. GV victims or survivors are present in all of the interactions and communicative
situations arising in contexts of this type of violence. It is important to remember that foreign
GV victims find themselves in an especially vulnerable situation. Not only do they belong to
[! 34]
linguistic and cultural minorities, they often have a lower level of education and purchasing
power, and might be unaware or only partially aware of the social reality of the host country.
These circumstances are exacerbated by the vulnerability and isolation resulting from the
situation of abuse.
The violence suffered creates an emotional state in which the woman may experience a
mixture of feelings such as fear, distrust, shame, regret, etc. These condition the
communicative interactions, the victim’s perception of reality, her relationships with the
providers, her account of the events and the way she expresses herself. Silences, hesitations,
contradictions, disjointed ideas and the use of vulgar language are features that may pose a
challenge for the interpreter in both the comprehension and reformulation of the message,
and yet these features require the utmost accuracy in their translation.
In addition, both the emotional state of the woman and the harshness of the experiences she
describes can represent a psychological burden that interpreters find hard to overcome, or that
impedes their ability to do their job correctly and even affects their health. Therefore, it is
necessary that interpreters be provided with the tools they need to manage the situation, both
through training and external support (Huelgo et al. 2006).
Interpreter Competence with Special Reference to Contexts of Gender Violence
The objective of this section is to describe the competencies of the interpreter with special
reference to PSI and, even more specifically, in communicative situations related to the
assistance of GV victims and survivors.
We agree with Kelly (2002: 9) that the concept of competence encompasses the abilities,
skills, knowledge and even attitudes displayed by professionals of translation and
interpreting, which are understood to be expert activities.
An global analysis of Translation and Interpreting Studies and TI pedagogy (Pöchhacker
2004: 179; Sawyer 2004: 53-60) allows us to identify a series of competencies generally
accepted as learning objectives of professional training in both disciplines, such as the
following: a high standard of linguistic competence applied to interlinguistic and intercultural
communication; knowledge of the sociocultural context associated with the working
languages; specialised subject knowledge in different thematic fields; a high level of
proficiency in translating and interpreting techniques; and a profound knowledge of the ethics
of the profession.
While these competencies, insofar as they are generic and global, can be considered
applicable to any genre of interpreting, the characteristics and needs of interlingual and
intercultural communication in the public services, and even more so in GV contexts, make a
specific competency profile necessary. To define it, we will begin with the model of translator
competence proposed by Kelly (2005: 73-78), based on seven areas of competence and
adapted for PSI by Abril (2006; Abril and Martin 2008). After describing each of these areas,
[! 35]
the specific implications of each of them for interpreting in GV contexts will be outlined,
according to data obtained from the field work performed as part of the SOS-VICS7 project.
1. Linguistic and communicative competence
This area refers to the interpreter’s active and passive proficiency in the working languages.
In the case of PSI, a communicative competence in different dialects and varieties of the
working languages (especially for cases of diglossia, as in Arabic), as well as in different
registers and discourse styles is particularly important, with special attention being given to
the difficulties posed by cases of non-equivalence.
Given the characteristics of the primary participants for whom they are to interpret, the
interpreter must be able to manage both the specialised discourse of the public service
providers and the informal discourse of other individuals who may have a low level of
education and who come from different cultures, who may have different ways of expressing
themselves and of understanding the communicative protocols in formal contexts such as the
public services.
In the specific case of GV, in addition to the above, specific skills, knowledge and attitudes
are needed. It is worth noting that the interpreter must develop the capability of verbalising
offensive language or language that describes parts of the body or types of aggression, which
may be uncomfortable or stressful to express.
Also, interpreting in interviews related to GV requires that special attention be paid to the
victim’s forms of expression and her selection of words while making statements, for
example, when referring to herself and to the abuser, and to her medical and psychological
conditions. Only in this way can the specialised service provider receive the complete and
accurate information he or she needs to conduct an evaluation or plan an intervention.
The accuracy and fidelity of the transmission of information, not forgetting non-verbal
communication, are particularly relevant in the GV context. In fact, victims might give
testimonies containing inconsistencies and inaccuracies. These can help the public service
providers to identify the emotional state of the victim, possible attempts at simulation and
even the effects of alcohol or drugs, so the interpreter must know how to identify and
replicate such inconsistencies and inaccuracies. Similarly, it is essential that the interpreter be
alert to other characteristics of non-verbal communication such as pauses and silences, and
the meanings they convey, so as to recognise when they should be respected and not used as
an opportunity to interpret what has just been said.
7
In addition to the previously mentioned Delphi survey, which was administered to interpreters, the field work
of SOS-VICS consisted of several needs analysis studies, carried out with distinct methodologies (focus groups,
surveys and interviews) with the objective of gathering the perceptions of both the service providers who assist
foreign GV victims in Spain and of the victims themselves.
[! 36]
2. Intercultural competence
This refers to the sociocultural background knowledge associated with the working
languages. It can be understood in broad terms as the knowledge of the institutions, history
and geography of a society, but also the perceptions, beliefs and values of the members of a
linguistic community.
In the case of PSI, it points to the need for interpreters to have sufficient knowledge of the
social and demographic phenomenon of immigration so as to readily understand the
relationships and attitudes of the people they interpret for with respect to the host society.
Equally relevant is knowledge of the cultural values that influence interpersonal
relationships, central concepts in the public services (such as health, law and education) and
the communicative strategies of speakers when it comes to interacting in formal contexts
such as the public services.
In this regard, since it is not very realistic to expect interpreters to be completely competent
in one or more cultures, it is essential that they develop a generic and contextualised
intercultural competence, and above all, that they be able to distinguish purely cultural
information from clichés and prejudices that make it difficult to recognise the individuality of
the speakers. This competence allows interpreters to identify culture-specific information that
might influence the content or the form of the messages, and discern when to act as a cultural
expert (by giving explanations inside or outside the interview) and when to simply translate
and allow the public service providers to act.
In GV contexts, interpreters must familiarise themselves with the basic general concepts of
GV as well as the aspects of GV that are marked by culture. In other words, the interpreter
must be familiar with the cultural patterns that influence how the victim understands,
experiences and expresses her situation of GV. These aspects include the very concept of GV
(for example, behaviour considered to be GV in one culture may be relatively normalised in
another); the concept of public versus private, and the context in which certain conflicts, such
as family or couples’ conflicts, are resolved; the identification of taboo concepts in relation to
sexuality, which can lead victims to express themselves with evasiveness due to modesty, etc.
Similarly, communicative patterns can be conditioned by culture, for example, in terms of the
notions that different cultures have of the quantity and relevance of the information
exchanged during conversation. In this sense, the interpreter must know how to analyse and
respect the pace of a victim's narration, which could be affected by her state of mind or
simply by the communicative protocols associated with her culture.
3. Subject area competence
This competence refers to the knowledge of the subject areas in which interpreters work. The
variety of subjects is well defined in the case of PSI, since it involves the public services. It
includes knowledge about the professional and administrative organisation of one or more
public services, about the most common topics in one or more fields of specialised
[! 37]
knowledge (medicine, law or education, for example), and about the specialised discourse
and terminology employed by public service providers. Additionally, it includes a familiarity
with the documents commonly used in each service.
It should be mentioned that in the case of GV the assistance provided to victims has a highly
interdisciplinary nature, given that it involves comprehensive intervention by various public
services. In this sense, the interpreter needs to have multiple subject-area competence.
Moreover, the assistance provided by the various public services tends to respond to a
regulated and protocolised dynamic. Therefore, interpreters will be better prepared and will
do their job better if they know the rights of the victims and the services that the different
administrations provide to them, and acquaint themselves with the different protocols and
types of documents on which the interviews with victims and survivors are based (tests,
questionnaires, semi-structured interviews, report forms, risk assessment reports, etc.). Also,
it is essential that all of this subject-area knowledge be contextualised. In other words, the
interpreter must be prepared to adapt to each type of interview and its particular
communicative objectives and dynamics, even within the same public service.
Finally, working in contexts of GV implies an understanding of specific issues related to
gender. Interpreters must approach their work from a gender perspective, since, without it,
they are unlikely to truly comprehend the origin, dimension and dynamics of this particular
form of violence, or understand the actions of the service providers specialised in assisting
the victims.
4. Professional Instrumental Competence
This competence refers to the interpreter's proficiency in using documentary and
terminological research and management tools and also to the interpreter's knowledge and
understanding of the ethical considerations or the codes of ethics needed to practice the
profession in a responsible manner. In the case of PSI, this implies knowing the role of the
interpreter and knowing how to uphold it, if necessary, in the face of the many pressures to
which interpreters may be subjected by contextual or communicative factors, or factors
relating to the expectations of the participants. As explained in the section dedicated to ethics,
interpreters must understand codes of ethics not as a rigid mould, but rather as frames of
reference that permit them to make informed and contextualised decisions.
If PSI situations generally lend themselves to dilemmas concerning the limits of the
intervention of the interpreter, this occurs even more so in contexts relating to GV, in which
emotionally-charged communication often takes place. Interpreters might be exposed to
conflicting expectations; on the one hand, the victim's expectations, and on the other hand,
those of the providers of the various public services, in terms of both their tasks and their
attitude. In some cases interpreters will be expected to be agents that facilitate
communication, who can even intervene in their own name and, acting with empathy, help
victims to express themselves freely and with confidence. In other cases the primary
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participants may prefer that the facilitation work be done by the service provider, since he or
she has been specifically prepared for this role. Similarly, some service providers will expect
interpreters to act as experts and mediators, explaining common concepts and procedures to
the victim, while there are others that prefer that the interpreter limit his or her involvement
to translating as accurately as possible, without performing any other function. Interpreters
must be alert to these contradictory and sometimes unrealistic expectations, having a clear
concept of their role and knowing how to explain it, and learning to work impartially,
maintaining an objective, empathic attitude—not overprotective or paternalistic—which does
not usurp or interfere with the initiative or control of the situation, which corresponds to the
primary participants.
5. Attitudinal and psycho-physiological competence
In general terms, this competence refers to the self-concept—and therefore to the attitude—of
interpreters as professionals who work within a particular participation framework, in which
they associate with other professionals. It also refers to their psycho-physiological capacities
(such as attention, concentration and memory, and their analysis and reformulation
capacities), which enables them to master the technical and cognitive process of
interpretation.
As for the first facet of this competence, self-concept, in GV contexts interpreters must be
aware of their values, beliefs and opinions, and of the attitudes that derive from them. They
must examine their attitude regularly, to stay alert to the risk of being influenced by
individual prejudices and generalisations, especially regarding the concepts of gender and
gender violence. Both these and the attitudes of the participants—rejection, suspicion, over
implication, etc.—can threaten interpreter impartiality and cloud their objectivity.
As for psycho-physiological capacities, given the nature of GV cases and the state in which
the victims often find themselves, the interpreter needs to have a special capacity for
concentration and analysis to be able to interpret testimonies that may be disjointed or
incoherent. At the same time, a good memory and command of interpreting techniques is
necessary so that the interpreter can relay extensive accounts without the need to interrupt the
victim in order to interpret.
6. Interpersonal competence
In general terms, this competence refers to the ability to work professionally in a team and to
interrelate with the other parties involved in translation and interpreting as professional
activities.
In the case of PSI, we are faced with a specific participation and relational framework, since
interpreting is carried out in dialogic communicative situations in which the interaction of the
interpreter with the other participants is very visible. Thus, interpersonal competence includes
social or interpersonal communication skills, as well as a capacity for active listening,
[! 39]
assertiveness and proficiency in strategies of negotiation and interrogation. Also specific to
PSI is the ability to manage interpreted interviews, applying techniques to arbitrate the
interventions of the primary participants, to ask for clarifications from a given participant and
to know when to interrupt the interaction so as to introduce his or her own clarifications.
Finally, the capacity to interrelate with the users of public services and the service providers
should be highlighted, as interpreters must know how to explain their function and role and
request background information prior to the interview (briefing sessions).
In GV contexts, within the different public service interviews can have differing objectives
and dynamics, which interpreters should be aware of and recognise. In particular, they must
identify and respect different discursive and interrogative styles, and their relationship with
the communicative objective of each situation. This entails identifying and being able to
faithfully reproduce the closed, open-ended, guided and neutral questions, etc., employed by
the public service providers for different purposes: to obtain concrete information, relax the
victim, invite her to express her case in her own words, etc. It also entails the capacity to
adapt and select the most appropriate interpreting technique or method (interpreting without
notes, with notes or whispered), with the objective of transmitting all of the information
without interfering with the pace or duration of the statement.
To identify the objective of the communication and the strategies of the service provider
assisting the victim, the interpreter must try to meet with the provider before the exchange
begins. These briefing sessions allow the interpreter to understand the service provider's
activity and thus work with him or her more effectively, and they give the interpreter the
chance also to explain his or her role, so as to avoid unrealistic expectations. The briefing
sessions can also be used to request the relevant documents to prepare a case or do a better
sight translation during the interview.
7. Strategic competence
In general terms, this competence covers all the procedures for planning, organising and
carrying out expert work, as well as the interpreter's problem solving and self-evaluation
capacity.
It is a global and cross-disciplinary competence that, when applied more specifically to PSI,
involves a proficiency in the cognitive process of interpreting through a command of
different interpreting techniques; a solid decision-making capacity based on the internal
analysis of all the factors that define each communicative situation; and a deep understanding
of the basic ethical criteria for the resolution of the inherent dilemmas in PSI, which may
include the delimitation of the role of the interpreter. In short, it is a “meta-communicative
competence” that involves knowing what to do, why it has to be done and how to do it (Niska
2002: 134).
In the case of GV, given the variety of communicative objectives of the different interviews, a
strong situational analysis capability and a mastery of different interpreting techniques
[! 40]
become especially relevant for the interpreter, as they allow him or her to be as effective as
possible with minimum interference.
Furthermore, as previously mentioned, the nature of interactions related to GV and the
communicative and personal profile of the victims create technical difficulties and ethical
challenges, but, even more specifically, they can have an emotional impact on interpreters,
which can threaten their objectivity or even affect their health. In this sense, interpreting in
GV contexts requires a specialised preparation in emotional control, stress management and
self-care strategies (see the chapter “Estrategias de prevención y autoayuda para intérpretes
que trabajan en contextos de violencia de género” “Strategies of prevention and self-care for
interpreters who work in contexts of gender violence” in this volume).
In other words, this final comprehensive competence could be defined as the interpreters'
ability to analyse situations, identify and maintain their professional role amid contextual
pressures and sometimes conflicting expectations, maintain their technical skills in peak form
during the entire interpreted interview and also control their own emotions.
Ethics in Public Service Interpreting
1. General features
The branch of ethics known as deontology focuses on the science of duties or obligations. In
reference to professions, the series of obligations and duties of those who practice a given
profession are often laid down in a code of ethics. The objective is to establish the standards
expected of the members of the professional community in question, so as to protect and
promote its image (Baixauli 2008: 65).
In the case of interpreting, ethics represent one of the issues that most differentiate the
various modalities or genres from one another. Conference interpreting, as mentioned before,
is commonly considered to be the form of professional interpreting par excellence. This form
of professional interpreting was developed by the practitioners themselves, who, from the
beginning, received recognition from international organisations, who were their first
employers. This is what Ozolins (2000: 32) describes as “profession-driven” evolution. From
an early stage (1953) an international organisation of conference interpreters was created, the
AIIC (Association Internationale des Interprètes de Conférence), and its code of ethics serves
as a reference for all professionals, regardless of whether each country or region has its own
code of ethics 8.
In contrast, what is referred to as PSI comes from an activity that is “institution
driven” (Ozolins ibid), that is, it is determined by the public institutions themselves, driven
8
Although it is beyond the scope of this article, it is worth mentioning a recent trend in research about
conference interpreting examining the existence of asymmetric discourses in the context of
international conferences and organisations. This brings up previously unexplored questions about the
role and ethics of conference interpreters. See the articles by Boéri and De Manuel (2011) and
Donovan (2011).
[! 41]
by the often urgent need to solve a problem of interlinguistic and intercultural communication
that prevents them from adequately attending to users who do not speak the official language
of the host country. Against this backdrop, and without a cohesive body of professionals or an
association similar to the AIIC, we find that PSI is quite often carried out by nonprofessionals guided by a commendable humanitarian vocation but without the previous
training that would allow them to define their functions or clearly identify their role. All of
this, together with a general absence of sufficiently broad, cohesive and validated training
programmes (although some countries are much more advanced than others in this area),
means that there is no universally recognised professional profile and there are no commonly
accepted standards of practice, duties and obligations.
As Hale explains (2007: 103), the majority of professional codes of ethics simply reinforce
that which is learnt in training and validated by professional certification. In the case of PSI,
in the absence of training and certification, the codes constitute practically the only frames of
reference that can be looked to for rules of conduct and guidelines regarding the practice of
such a complex activity, where, as we have seen, the interpreter fulfils an essential role in
managing the interaction between participants who do not have the same level of power.
Hence, codes are essential for PSI. However, what exactly do they provide and how much
can they contribute to a better professional practice?
In contrast to conference interpreting, which has the code of ethics developed by the AIIC,
there is no one single code for PSI. In fact, the number of codes of ethics, rules of conduct,
standards of practice, etc. 9) that exist for PSI is remarkable. Some come from professional
interpreter associations and are national in scope (in the few countries where there are PSI
associations, like in Australia or Canada); others are proposals made by the public bodies or
institutions that frequently use interpreters and have attempted to standardise their
performance in that field (as in the case of various state courts in the United States). There are
also proposals from international associations which have emerged recently in an attempt to
contribute to the generalised professionalisation of PSI, such as IMIA (International Medical
Interpreters Association) or EULITA (European Legal Interpreters and Translators
Association) (at the end of this section a selection of codes of ethics is recommended).
However, despite their differences, there are certain features common to practically all of the
codes.
This can be seen in the studies conducted by Bancroft (2005) and Hale (2007), which
compare a wide range of documents related to ethics in PSI and published by various
professional associations and public agencies or bodies. Some of these are generic, while
others are specific to a particular public service (mainly medical services or courts). Bancroft
9
Bancroft (2005) makes a distinction between codes of ethics/conduct, and standards of practice
based on the fact that the former are more prescriptive and are intended to be binding, while the latter
are usually more indicative and describe how to act in specific situations. Nevertheless, in terms of
content, there are no significant differences between them, so in this case we will not make any
distinction.
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analyses 145 documents from 25 countries, while Hale studies 16 codes of ethics from nine
countries. Both identify a significant degree of similarity in certain aspects of content, which
is summarised below:
From an overall perspective, Hale (2007: 108) differentiates between three large areas in
which the specific content of individual codes can be grouped, namely:
• Questions relating to the responsibility of the interpreter towards the primary
participants (users and clients). These include confidentiality, accuracy or fidelity
with respect to the original message, and impartiality (they appear in this order of
frequency in the codes analysed).
• Questions relating to the responsibility of the interpreter towards the profession,
with reference to questions of professional conduct (attire, punctuality and
professional solidarity).
• Questions relating to the responsibility of the interpreter towards him or herself as a
professional. In this area the codes usually include questions relating to the duty of
professional development, role definition and working conditions.
Bancroft (2005: 18) identifies the following contents as being common to the majority of the
analysed documents: confidentiality, accuracy and fidelity, and impartiality. Bancroft also
identifies references to professional competence and solidarity in the codes and standards as
being practically universal. These concepts include, on the one hand, the duty to guarantee
the highest level of quality of the interpretation itself, continually working to improve one’s
professional competence, and on the other hand, professional solidarity in its broad sense,
and more specifically, the interpreter’s obligation to withdraw from an assignment in the
event of conflict of interest.
Clearly there is a high degree of consensus with regard to the principles of confidentiality,
accuracy and fidelity, and impartiality, so an in-depth analysis of these principles seems
worthwhile.
a. Confidentiality
The basic definition of this principle seems obvious: interpreters are required to maintain
strict professional confidentiality and not divulge any information that they receive while
performing their work. If this is a basic premise in the work of any interpreter, in contexts
such as GV, interpreters must be aware of the risks that any relaxation of confidentiality,
however minimal, could bring to the safety of the victim and her children. In fact, in GV
cases confidentiality can be a matter of life and death (Polzin 2007: 23).
Maintaining confidentiality includes aspects that might go unnoticed at first glance, such as
protecting all of the documents relating to the interpreting assignment and refraining from
mentioning logistical details (place, date, time, names) outside of the interview itself,
inasmuch as these details could allow the people involved in the matter to be identified
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(Baixauli 2010: 12). This is especially the case in small language groups, since the interpreter
could belong to the same community as the victim or the perpetrator.
Furthermore, surveys administered to public service providers for the SOS-VICS project
have confirmed that it is not always possible to assign different interpreters for the victim and
the perpetrator. In these cases, interpreters must be especially rigorous as regards
confidentiality, not only by not revealing information, but also by not allowing their
knowledge of the testimony of one of the parties to contaminate their interpretation of the
other, which would affect the fidelity of the translation as well as the interpreter’s duty of
confidentiality (see the chapter “La interpretación profesional con víctimas de violencia de
género en los ámbitos policial y judicial: hacia una asistencia lingüística especialidad”
“Professional interpreting for victims of gender-based violence in the police and legal fields:
towards the provision of specialised language services” in this volume).
Furthermore, the fact that she must express herself through another person, someone who
may even belong to the same community, could inspire fear and distrust in the victim,
preventing her from speaking freely. To counter this effect, both public service providers and
interpreters should ensure that the victim has been explicitly informed of the principle of
interpreter confidentiality; if necessary, they should explain what this means and clarify, for
example, that all notes taken during the session will be destroyed. It is even recommended
that they be destroyed in the presence of the victim.
These details, together with an impeccable professional performance in all respects, will help
the victim to view the interpreter as a professional she can trust to the same extent as the
people who perform psychotherapy, medical services or legal activities.
b. Accuracy and/or fidelity
Although the various codes and standards formulate this principle differently and with
differing degrees of explicitness, in general, they refer to the duty of the interpreter to convey
the original message without adding or suppressing information, maintaining the greatest
possible equivalence with the source speech.
Some authors have questioned the validity of codes of ethics that prescribe literal translation
as a means of achieving fidelity. In response to these opinions, Hale (2007:105-117)
demonstrates through her comparative study that the codes do not require robotic and wordfor-word translations, as one might expect from a demand for literal renditions. Furthermore,
it is often recommended that the interpreter make the necessary changes and search for the
pragmatic equivalence of the original message in order to transmit not only the verbal
information, but also the non-verbal information and the tone and intention reflected in the
speaker's message. As the same author pointed out, the codes do not go into detail about how
to achieve this last objective nor do they offer specific recommendations about how to act in
circumstances where the nature of the message or the working languages hinder accuracy and
fidelity (for example, in the case of the absence of linguistic equivalents in the target
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language). In this respect, it should be noted that codes are no more than guidelines that
professionals should put into practice while applying their professional discretion and
judgement, supported by solid training (Hale 2007: 105, 114; 2008: 101; Mikkelson 2008:
90, 92). In any case, there are different models of guidelines about the role of the interpreter
that do offer general suggestions for resolving some of the dilemmas regarding how to
respect accuracy or fidelity in potentially problematic cases (see below).
In relation to the specific context of GV, the content and form of the messages can pose
special challenges when it comes to maintaining accuracy and fidelity and the interpreter
needs to be alert to them. In particular, the dramatic nature of some of the statements,
offensive language and descriptions of violent events or of sexual abuse constitute a
challenge for interpreters, who could feel the temptation to reduce the force of the message as
a face-saving strategy for either themselves or the victims, or simply because they feel
incapable of verbalising certain terms or descriptions that affect them emotionally. Yet,
precisely in these contexts it is essential to translate as accurately as possible, given that these
details, in form and substance, can be decisive for the assessment of the seriousness of the
case and the state of the victim, and will help the public service professional to provide the
most adequate assistance (Hale 2011: 36, Polzin 2007: 23, Toledano and Fernández 2012:
42). Only in this way can the interpreter facilitate the communication between the parties
faithfully and objectively, in a way that the victims can accurately and correctly report their
situation, and at the same time be informed about their rights and obligations (Toledano and
Fernandez 2012: 44, our italics).
c. Impartiality
The concept of impartiality is one of the most complex and controversial in relation to PSI.
As Hale explains (2007: 120), codes of ethics usually define impartiality in negative terms,
that is, they list the actions that an impartial interpreter should avoid. Normally they specify
that interpreters should not offer advice or opinions to the parties for whom they interpret, nor
should they alter the message to adapt it to their ideology, beliefs or interests. In short, the
interpreter should strive for the highest possible level of objectivity and neutrality. But to
what extent is this possible and how does it materialise in the interpreter's day-to-day work?
We cannot lose sight of the fact that PSI takes place in situations with very specific
characteristics in which, as we have seen, power asymmetries among the participants exist:
asymmetry of languages, culture, knowledge, authority, initiative, power, etc. They are
situations in which interpreters often feel that they can balance this asymmetry and help the
party they perceive to be weaker. At the same time, the communication can be very highly
charged emotionally—as is the case in international protection or GV contexts—, and staying
neutral can pose a challenge. In contexts such as GV, over-involvement with the victim and a
lack of gender perspective that aids in understanding the context of each case are especially
likely to compromise the neutrality of the interpreter. During an interpreted encounter, the
interpreter will develop his or her own impressions of the primary participants and of the
[! 45]
messages to be interpreted; at the same time, the primary interlocutors will bring their own
views to the encounter and will communicate in a manner conditioned by their own needs
and objectives; also, they will not communicate directly, but through a third participant, who
holds the power of communication. In such a communicative framework, it is not surprising
that the various participants each have their own expectations about interpreting and develop
their own concept about the role of the interpreter, which has given rise to different theories
and explanatory models, as we will see in the following section.
2. Different models for defining the role of the interpreter
The question of the role of interpreters and the limits of their intervention lends itself to
various definitions and analyses. In fact, debates by experts and professionals have centred on
this issue since PSI came to the fore on the global scale in the 1990s. In the first stage, an
attempt was made to define the role of the interpreter in the public services by using the
invisibility model, accepted for conference interpreting, or the conduit model (understood as
relay or message conversion device), prescribed for legal interpreting in the countries in
which it was more developed. However, as research in PSI has advanced, with studies based
on conversational analysis of interpreted situations, it has been demonstrated that the
invisibility of the interpreter is fictitious.
In the first place, simply by their physical presence and by the interpreting technique they
employ (bilateral interpreting requires that the interpreter assume one out of every two
speaking turns and interact with the other participants), interpreters are physically visible and
it is impossible for the participants to disengage from or not react to their presence.
Interpreters are not only visible, they are also part of the “psychology of the
conversation” (Bot and Verrept 2013: 128).
Similarly, it has been shown that communicative interaction does not occur in a vacuum or in
aseptic and sterile environments, but rather, it is produced as a contextualised practice in a
particular setting (Angelelli 2008: 149-152), in which the participants, including the
interpreter, interact conditioned by various sociocultural and institutional norms. Hence, it is
impossible for the interpreter to translate like a mechanical device, since finding appropriate
equivalents would be extremely difficult if he or she did not analyse the message to be
interpreted as a contextualised utterance (Toledano and Fernández 2012: 43).
Angelelli (2008: 151) systematically reviews interpreter actions that clearly show his or her
active personal participation and their patent visibility, and which have been documented in
specialised literature: in practice, interpreters intervene co-constructing the message and as
additional participants in the communication; they control the communication rules, for
example, by managing speaking turns; they reformulate and explain terms or concepts; they
adapt the register of the original messages; they filter information; they align themselves with
the participants (taking sides), and assume the role of the participants, for example, by
advising the user.
[! 46]
All of these aspects relating to the nature of PSI and the visibility of interpreters have
inspired the definition of different models of interpreter role, which either describe it or even
attempt to regulate it. Before referring to some of them, it should be emphasised that these
models are usually based on a distinction between the public service fields considered to be
more collaborative (medical, social and health services) and others that are more adversarial
(police and courts). This distinction determines that a greater or lesser range of intervention is
accepted for the interpreter (Roat et al. 1999: 19; Mikkelson 2008: 92).
For collaborative settings, especially the medical setting, in practice we find a certain
preference for models of interpreting that accept a wider range of intervention. In Belgium
and in countries with Romance cultures such as France, Italy or Spain the figure of
intercultural mediators who perform interpreting tasks is frequent (Bot and Verrept 2013:
118). However, we consider this type of mediation to be different from interpreting; although
we believe that intercultural mediation is a professional profile as necessary as PSI, it has
very different objectives, competencies and standards of practice.
Many other roles have been described based on the behaviours observed in the practice of
medical interpreting. Thus, the specialised literature has documented interpreter profiles that,
in addition to providing linguistic assistance, defend the patient, or act as agents of
integration, representatives of the public service, companions to the patient or even cotherapists (see the review by Bischoff et al. 2012); once again, profiles far from the definition
of what an interpreter is in a strict sense. At this stage it is important to remember that, as
Hale points out (2007: 126), the practices observable in real situations and collected in
empirical studies very often reflect the performance of non-professional interpreters, and as
such should not be viewed as ‘what should be done’, however frequent they are in practice,
although they do illustrate that the interpreter is anything but invisible.
In police settings and even more so in judicial settings, the dynamics of interpreter-mediated
communication is highly regulated, since the participation framework of communication in
monolingual legal settings responds to a very rigid pattern. The interpreter, for example, will
barely have to manage turn-taking, given that the interventions are predetermined (Angelelli
2008: 152). This rigid structure is one of the explanations of the generally accepted role of
the legal interpreter as a conduit. It is a widely criticised approach, inasmuch as it has been
regarded as equal to the translation machine model, which implies a literal translation without
further consideration (Bot and Verrept 2013: 120). However, Hale (2007: 127) understands
the conduit metaphor as not necessarily meaning that the interpreter must be a robot who
translates word for word, but rather, that conduit should be understood as a reference to the
role of the interpreter as a communication channel. In this regard, and without further
specification of the practical operation of this channel, the conduit metaphor could be
perfectly valid. In any case, a more restrictive profile of the interpreter is accepted in police
and judicial settings.
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In light of this diversity of interpreting models, it is natural that we should ask ourselves
which role is the most appropriate one and which factors must guide the selection of one over
another.
Having reached this point, we believe it is important to stress that PSI is an activity far too
broad, diverse and complex to universally apply a single definition of the role of the
interpreter and much less to prescribe one. Rather, the interpreter must act with a clear
and well-defined objective: to serve as a communication bridge and to facilitate
communication between the primary participants, doing so with the least possible
interference. Within this overarching objective, the interpreter must analyse the needs
and limitations of each situation so as to be an effective bridge.
In this respect, the models or approaches that describe the interpreter’s role as something
dynamic seem to us to be the most relevant and realistic. These approaches cohesively
integrate a series of "sub-roles" or positions with regard to the communication, both in
general (the interpreter adapts his or her role to the context of the specific public service
involved) and in each particular interaction (the interpreter chooses various roles or positions
as the communication needs of the encounter evolve) (cf. Angelelli 2008; Bischoff et al.
2012; Bot 2003; Bot and Verrept 2013; Hale 2008; Mason 2009; Mikkelson 2008; Roat et al.
1999, among others).
This dynamic approach is perfectly explained in the incremental intervention model proposed
by Roat et al. (1999: 17-21) for the medical field and which has been adopted, for example,
by the California Healthcare Interpreting Association (CHIA), whose code of ethics is one of
the most respected in the medical interpreting world (see a selection of codes at the end of
this article).
The incremental intervention model assumes that there are at least four types of
communication barriers: linguistic; cultural; those based on the asymmetrical use and
command of the register, concepts and terms specific to the health system; and systemic
barriers, that is, the barriers that arise from the complexity of the health system or from the
attitudes of its professionals. Therefore, the interpreter, whose mission is to achieve effective
communication in spite of these barriers, can assume four different roles:
• Conduit: consists of rendering the exact message issued in one language into
another with no editing or adapting of the message. This is the interpreter’s default
role, the most basic and most common, that is, that which interpreters assume unless
they detect a potential conflict relating to a barrier that is not purely linguistic.
• Clarifier: the interpreter adopts this role only when the previous role is not
sufficient or the participants require some type of intervention that facilitates
understanding. It consists of explaining the concepts for which there are no
equivalent terms in the other language or whose equivalents are not understood by
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the person who receives the message; it also involves checking that both parties are
taking the message in and to make it known if this is not the case.
• Culture broker: refers to an intervention where the interpreter provides a specific
cultural framework in which a particular message is to be understood. This is only
adopted when a cultural difference could hinder understanding or lead to a
misunderstanding.
• Advocate: this role is more oriented towards ensuring the quality of medical care
rather than the effectiveness of communication; and in fact it is performed outside the
interpreted interview. It is adopted when a systemic barrier is detected that prevents
the fulfilment of the patient’s needs. As a general rule, it is limited to providing the
patient with the information needed to resolve the situation, or to put them in contact
with specialised personnel who can. It is an optional and complex role that requires
special preparation. In fact, Polzin (2007: 24), referring to GV contexts, recommends
that, before taking on this role, the interpreter call upon professionals from the public
services who have received the specific training necessary to provide support and
services to the victim.
The model is represented in the form of a pyramid, with the role of conduit at the base and
that of advocate at the top.
!
Roat et al’s (1999:17-21) Incremental Intervention Model
As we move up the levels of the pyramid, the roles become more “invasive” because they
imply a greater independent intervention by the interpreter. At the same time, apart from the
rising degree of intervention or interference, the pyramid assumes a descending progression
in terms of frequency. As we move up the levels of the pyramid, each role is required less
frequently. This means that interpreters are always conduits and very often only conduits.
However, given the complexity of medical discourse and the lack of equivalence for some
concepts in some languages, the interpreter may be obliged to intervene to describe concepts
or to define a certain cultural framework in which a message is to be understood.
Ultimately, the rule in decision-making as regards the degree of intervention is clear:
interpreters must choose the role that least interferes in the primary relationship, that is, that
which connects the patient to the public service provider. At the same time, they must be
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prepared to progressively increase the degree of intervention if they detect a barrier that could
impede effective communication or even threaten the well-being of the patient (Roat et al.
1999: 21).
In the same vein, in the search for balance between non-interference and justified
intervention, there is a second model, generally known as the impartial model, defined by
Cambridge (2002: 123; Cambridge et al. 2012: 122). According to this model, an interpreter's
performance should adhere to the following principles:
• Transmitting the original message in a complete and accurate manner, reproducing
the style, level of language and emotions of the author of the original message as
much as possible;
• Refraining from offering personal opinions or advice, except in the case of cultural
or linguistic issues, if it is considered relevant or is requested;
• Also refraining from explaining terms or concepts and, where it is considered
necessary, requesting that this be done by the service provider;
• Maintaining an impartial attitude, showing empathy while maintaining professional
distance, as well as the strictest confidentiality;
• Intervening only when he or she needs a clarification in order to interpret (and
alerting the parties that this is the reason for it), when an utterance was not heard
clearly or it becomes apparent that there has been a misunderstanding.
The most interesting aspect of these models is that they clearly define the role of the
interpreter in accordance with the principle of minimum interference but at the same time
they identify the circumstances justifying interventions that go beyond translating messages.
In this regard, they support the idea that interpreters can be accurate, faithful and impartial
without implying that they have to limit themselves to translating mechanically or be
insensitive to the human factors present in the communication.
3. Some conclusions regarding ethics
Together with these general guiding principles, it is important to remember that PSI is an
example of communication in specialised and institutional settings, which as such is always
contextualised, as mentioned above. This means that in different public services and in the
specific interactions within each service, this communication presents its own relational
characteristics, objectives and dynamics. In the case of GV specifically, the current system of
victim assistance services is characterised by the intervention of different institutions and
organisations working together in a complex network that aspires to function in an integrated
manner. This means that interpreters will intervene in very different settings and
encounters and they must therefore know how to contextualise their role, being guided
in this process by a deliberate and well-founded decision-making process. In this process
interpreters must consider two basic questions:
[! 50]
Firstly, they must have a very good understanding of the different models of the interpreter’s
role and the basic contents of the professional codes of ethics, with a view to referring back
to them as frames of reference that provide clear guidelines but are not strict moulds or the
perfect recipe for every occasion. In the words of Hale (2008: 101): “Interpreters will always
need to resort to their discretion and better judgement to make the appropriate decisions for
each situation, led by the general guidelines of the code of ethics.”
Secondly, the interpreter must learn about and then stay well informed about the
characteristics and functioning of each public service, and about the objectives and dynamics
of each type of interaction between a public service provider and a GV victim. For this
reason, interpreters should meet with the public service providers before the interpreted
interaction (referred to as a briefing session). During this meeting, they can explain their role
if necessary and at the same time gather details concerning the objectives of the interaction
and the strategies of the provider. This will help to avoid incorrect expectations about the role
of the interpreter and at the same time provide the interpreter with information essential for
effectively carrying out his or her duties. Depending on the circumstances, it may be
preferable, for example, that the interpreter introduces himself or herself to the victim in a
particular way so as to create an empathetic relationship that favours communication; in other
cases, the provider may prefer to introduce the interpreter. In certain more collaborative
settings, the interpreter will check if he or she can interrupt the conversation to inform the
participants that no equivalent term exists for a specific concept and request an explanation in
order to be able to translate, or propose an explanatory translation. In less collaborative
settings, it could be preferable to convey a term in its original form, so as to invite the public
service provider to request clarification (Mikkelson 2008: 93) and then have the user provide
it, through the interpreter. Certain interviews have the objective of carrying out a preliminary
evaluation of the victim and her situation. In this case, the service provider may prefer that
the victim express herself freely and in her own words. This is something the interpreter
should be aware of, taking care not to interrupt the victim and even recognising which
silences are significant and hence, not interpreting during them. The chapters in this
publication on the various areas of specialisation within the public services provide
contextualised reflections about the factors that should guide interpreters in their decisionmaking with respect to their role.
4. A selection of sample codes
Finally, after reviewing the basic aspects of PSI ethics, highlighting specific factors of GV
contexts, we propose a selection of codes that can provide interesting orientations for a
contextualised interpretation.
a. General
AUSIT (The Australian Institute of Interpreters and Translators) Code of Ethics for
Interpreters and Translators (http:// ausit.org/AUSIT/Documents/Code_Of_Ethics_Full.pdf).
[! 51]
Baixauli Olmos, Lluís (2010). Propuesta de Buenas Prácticas para la Interpretación en los
Servicios Públicos. In Baixauli Olmos, Lluís (2012). La interpretació als serveis públics des
d’una perspectiva ética: La deontologia profesional i l’aplicació al context penitenciari.
Castelló: Ed. Servei de Comunicació i Publicacions, Universidad Jaume I. (http://
www.tdx.cat/hand- le/10803/83723).
HIN (Healthcare Interpretation Network) from Canada: National Standard Guide for
Community Interpreting Services (http:// www.multi-languages.com/materials/
National_Standard_Gui- de_for_Community_Interpreting_Services.pdf).
National Register of Public Service Interpreters of the United Kingdom: Code of Professional
Conduct (http://www.nrpsi.org.uk/ for-clients-of-interpreters/code-of-professionalconduct.html).
b. Health setting
CHIA (California Healthcare Interpreting Association): The CHIA Standards (in English,
http://www.chiaonline. org/?page=CHIA Standards; in Spanish, http://c.ymcdn. com/sites/
www.chiaonline.org/resource/resmgr/chia_califor- nia_standards_fo.pdf).
IMIA (International Medical Interpreters Association): Standards of Practice (in English,
http://www.imiaweb.org/uploads/pages/102.pdf; in Spanish http://www.imiaweb. org/upload/
pages/102_4..pdf).
NCIHC (National Council on Interpreting in Health Care) of the United States: National
Standards of Practice for Interpreters in Healthcare (http://www.mchb.hrsa.gov/training/
documents/pdf_library/National_Standards_of_Practice_for_Interpreters_
in_Health_Care%20(12-05).pdf).
c. Legal setting
APTIJ (Asociación Profesional de Traductores e Intérpretes Judiciales y Jurados): Código
Deontológico para Intérpretes y Traductores Judiciales y Jurados (http://www.aptij.es/img/
web/ docs/codigo-d-aptij.pdf).
EULITA (European Legal Interpreters and Translators Association): Code of Professional
Ethics (http://www.eulita.eu/sites/ default/files/EULITA-code-London-e.pdf).
National Association of Judiciary Interpreters & Translators (United States of America): Code
o f E t h i c s a n d P ro f e s s i o n a l R e s p o n s i b i l i t i e s ( h t t p : / / w w w. n a j i t . o rg / a b o u t /
NAJITCodeofEthicsFINAL.pdf).
Summary
The main ideas presented throughout this chapter are briefly summarised below.
[! 52]
Interpreting is a translation activity that permits communication between people who speak
different languages. Interpreting can be classified into different types according to three
criteria: temporal, situational and in-person. The temporal criterion refers to the moment
when the original text is reformulated in the target language and includes interpreting
techniques such as consecutive, simultaneous, whispered (chuchotage) and sight translation.
The situational criterion takes into account the context in which the interpreting is produced,
establishing two fundamental modalities: conference interpreting and public service
interpreting. As for the in-person criterion, it applies to whether the interpreter is physically
present or absent in the communicative situation, differentiating between in-person
interpreting and remote interpreting. Telephone and video-conference interpreting belong to
this last category.
Of all these varieties, in this volume we focus on PSI, as the modality in which language
assistance is provided to GV victims. This type of interpreting is understood to facilitate
communication between the national, regional or local public services (police, legal, medical,
administrative, educational and religious) and the people who access these services that do
not speak the official language of the country and commonly belong to linguistic and cultural
minorities (indigenous communities that preserve their own language; political, social or
economic migrants; tourists and the hearing impaired) (Abril 2006: 24). It usually takes the
form of a dialogic interview and the most common technique used is bilateral or liaison
interpreting, in which the interpreter works in two languages, translating each statement into
the language of the other participants. Interpreters in the public services act as a
communication bridge and their function is not limited to translating between two languages;
they also assume other tasks such as coordinating the interaction between the parties and
trying to eliminate the various cultural barriers that can hinder communication. Similarly, the
relationship between the participants is characterised by a marked power imbalance in which
foreigners are normally found in a position of greater vulnerability than the public service
providers.
Within PSI, encounters in GV contexts have several specific characteristics. One of these is
its multidisciplinary nature, given that numerous services are provided in the legal, health and
psychosocial setting, and each of them gives rise to different communicative and discursive
situations. Another distinctive feature is the specialisation of interpreters; as with the other
professionals that intervene in these contexts, it is important that interpreters are proficient
with the basic concept of gender and male violence, that they know the intervention processes
and the legislation applicable to this field, and that they acquire a gender perspective that
allows them to carry out their work, starting with the idea of gender as a social construct and
not a series of individual attitudes. Finally, this type of interpreting is characterised by the
emotional component, resulting from the situation of distress of the victim. This is an aspect
that can complicate the work of interpreters, on the one hand because it can affect their state
of mind and on the other because anxiety can make the discourse of the victim fragmented or
disjointed and therefore much more difficult to translate into another language.
[! 53]
When working in GV contexts, it is important that the interpreter acquires a series of
competencies necessary for the provision of the services: (1) linguistic and communicative
competence, which is to say, an active and passive command of the working languages in a
wide variety of registers, discourse styles and dialects; (2) intercultural competence,
understood as familiarity with the sociocultural background of the communities where the
working languages of the interpreter are spoken, emphasising the knowledge of those
elements of GV most shaped by culture; (3) subject matter competence is of great importance
in the multidisciplinary contexts where PSI occurs and refers to the knowledge of the public
services in which the linguistic mediation is provided (how they are organised, the fields of
knowledge they deal with, etc.) and the type of discourse used by its professionals; it is also
related to the interpreter’s knowledge of the basic concepts of gender; (4) the professional
instrumental competence entails the management of those tools (documentary and
terminological sources, etc.) that allow the interpreter to prepare for his or her assignments
and the assimilation of the codes of ethics, which can allow the interpreter to make decisions
in an informed manner; (5) attitudinal and psycho-physiological competence includes, on the
one hand, aspects relating to the attitude of the interpreter towards the other professionals
with whom he or she interacts, and on the other hand, command of certain cognitive
capacities such as the attention, concentration or analytical capacity necessary to interpret; (6)
interpersonal competence is the capacity of the interpreter to work in a team with the other
parties involved in the care of victims, and knowing how to reproduce the type of discourse
employed by them; (7) finally, strategic competence is perhaps the one that is directly related
to the process of interpreting from a cognitive point of view. It covers both the aspects prior
to the assignment (preparation) and the interpreting itself (mastery of interpreting
techniques).
As with many of the other professional fields, the ethics and best practices that guide the
behaviour of interpreters are set out in documents such as codes of ethics, where a number of
obligations and tasks are established. At present, there is no single or international code of
ethics, although a range of several professional associations and public entities have
developed their own. The majority identify three aspects that are considered to be the pillars
of best practice: confidentiality (in other words, the interpreter should not divulge any type of
information concerning what he or she interprets); accuracy and/or fidelity (the full message
should be interpreted and reflect exactly the content and intention of the original text) and
impartiality (interpreters should not position themselves in favour of or against one of the
participants).
Due to their prescriptive nature, codes are responsible for defining the role of the interpreter,
but they have a limited capacity to anticipate the wide variety of situations that could arise in
practice and that may not be covered by such definition. In this respect, literature has
identified different models of interpreter role, ranging from the conduit model, under which
interpreters are invisible figures who simply translate the message almost automatically, to
approaches supporting the advocate role, in which interpreters position themselves in favour
[! 54]
of the foreign person to relieve them in some way of their vulnerable situation. Presently, it is
accepted that interpreters must not only be invisible, but also take an active part in the
communication, manage turn-taking, clarify cultural issues, etc. As a result, a balanced
position in which the interpreter interferes as little as possible and only when justified (never,
for example, to advise or offer personal views) is usually encouraged. Although it is
recommendable to employ a code of ethics as a reference, interpreters should make their own
decisions guided by their own professional judgement and adapt themselves to each type of
interaction. This applies especially to interpreting in GV contexts, given the wide variety of
communicative objectives and dynamics of intervention with victims.
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Translations into English of several chapters from the book "Interpretación en contextos de violencia de género" published by the Speak Out for Support (SOS-VICS) project and supervised by Prof. Jim Hlavac from Monash University, Melbourne, Australia
2015
For several decades now, many countries have had a strong track record in the fight against gender violence (GV). GV or violence against women refers to “any act of gender-based violence that results in, or is likely to result in, physical, sexual or psychological harm or suffering to women, including threats of such acts, coercion or arbitrary deprivation of liberty, whether occurring in public or in private life” (United Nations 1993). It is one of the most tragic consequences of the inequality between men and women....Read more
