NEWS
Electronic tags to foil wife killers

http://www.guardian.co.uk/spain/article/0,2763,1192217,00.html

Giles Tremlett in Madrid
Thursday April 15, 2004
The Guardian

Scientists hope an electronic tag will save the lives of some of the estimated 100 Spanish women murdered each year by partners or ex-partners.

The tags will sound alarms at an emergency call centre if a man breaks a court order to stay more than 500 metres from his ex-wife or partner.

They have been developed at Madrid's Salvador Velayos Institute, where investigators have adapted a system warning train drivers of an impending collision.

Investigators said yesterday they had a working prototype, which uses codified radio signals, and promised to have a marketable version ready within six months.

Madrid's regional government is funding the research as Spaniards become increasingly worried about what some politicians call "domestic terrorism".

The number of murders of women by their partners and former partners in Spain has broken records in recent years. At least 15 women have been killed this year.

The Madrid government, which has bought the industrial rights to the tags, hopes they will be used in other parts of Spain and around the world.

The incoming socialist government of José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero has pledged that the first law it introduces will be against domestic violence.

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