20 years since the murder of Rosario Endrinal, the crime that made homeless women visible

BarcelonaIn the early hours of December 16, 2005, three young men from Sarrià-Sant Gervasi went Burning alive a woman who was sleeping in an ATM vestibule on Guillem Tell Street. Previously, the assailants—aged 18 and 16—had surrounded and insulted Rosario Endrinal, who, fed up with them, locked herself in that small space, believing it to be safe. But the younger one tricked her into opening the door, and then, to her surprise, the other two boys threw solvent they had found at a nearby construction site on her and set her on fire.

Endrinal's murder shocked a society that then became aware of the presence of women barely surviving on the streets and also of the violence suffered by homeless people, recalls Roger Fe, who was then a young social educator at the Assisi FoundationAn organization that serves the homeless in the Sarrià neighborhood. At this center, they didn't know who Rosario Endrinal was, but he dedicated himself to learning the details of her life, and he fondly explains that this woman collected scrap metal around the city to give to a fakir who performed on La Rambla. "We hardly knew any homeless women, nor did we know that they have different strategies, and that they hide more to survive on the streets," Fe points out. It was also a shock that the attackers were teenagers from good families and didn't come from far-right or violent backgrounds, and, like Endrinal, were from the neighborhood.

A chance encounter

Rosario Endrinal was 51 years old, had a daughter, and had been an executive secretary at a company, but a series of personal circumstances led her to end up on the streets and lose contact with her family. Fe recounts how "Rosario, who was called Chari, didn't want to go to Gràcia that night with other people who were homeless and stayed at the ATM in her neighborhood, where she probably felt safe." Unfortunately, the three assailants found her after a night out and killed her.

At that time, although in 1995 the Valencian sociologist Adela Cortina had already coined the term Aporophobia To designate hatred towards the poor, this type of discrimination could not be applied in the trial against the adult aggressors, because it was not recognized within the Penal Code until 2022, explains lawyer Eva Hobiech.

Would the crime have been judged differently today? Surely it would, predicts the head of the legal service at Arrels Fundació, although she points out that there is still reluctance in the courts to consider this aggravating factor:There are few convictions and few complaints.“,” Hobiech responds, “because homeless people have “normalized” the violence against them due to their great vulnerability and also “distrust institutions” when it comes to speaking out.

It is often street educators who guess that someone has suffered an attack because of a wound or physical injury: they are also barred from entering bars or some public spaces, or insulted for being poor, for being on the street, or for being dirty.”

The crime marked a turning point, recalls Fe, who, now a consultant and trainer with his own company, Social Compass, says he always illustrates his talks with the Endrinal case because it served as a "wake-up call" for the social sector to "give greater importance to the violence" against this group. It is also relevant now for raising awareness among young people and teenagers that the perpetrators were boys "just like them." In the press, the crime of twenty years ago was treated primarily as a sensational event, fueled by the morbid fascination that both the perpetrators and the victim came from family backgrounds that defied the stereotypical associations of violence and homelessness with social marginalization. "The media is a mirror of society," notes the lawyer, who appreciates the progress made in approaches to homelessness.

Reviewing the chronicles, and with today's perspective, the lawyer points out the surprising use of now-banished "derogatory" vocabulary to refer to homeless people (vagrant, homeless person, beggar). She also highlights the absence of expert voices—present today—on homelessness, poverty, and social rights, because it is essentially a police narrative, with hardly any social context.

Tribute from the neighborhood

This anniversary, as every year, Arran Cassoles will commemorate Endrinal's memory on Wednesday afternoon, right in front of the ATM where she was murdered. It is a simple and moving ceremony, which will be attended by other organizations, such as the Assís Foundation, and serves to "pay tribute to a neighbor" from a neighborhood where "hatred of the poor also exists," says Joan Cebrian, a 24-year-old member of Arran. "We have inherited Rosario's memory," he emphasizes. In memory of Rosario Endrinal, the Assís Foundation, after obtaining permission from her family, named the shelter for homeless women with several additional problems.

In 2008, the adults arrested were sentenced to 17 years for premeditated murder and for the property damage to the bank branch. The minor, tried under juvenile law, was sentenced to eight years of confinement.