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Madrid No Frills

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Madrid Election Talk: Gender inequality, domestic violence and reproductive rights

The pandemic hasn’t affected everyone equally. In fact, it has exacerbated and deepened pre-existing inequalities. During lockdown last year, Madrid alone recorded a 37% increase in calls to its regional helpline for gender violence. Due to the pressures of the Covid-19 pandemic, women in the capital have evidently been disproportionately affected in comparison with their male counterparts.
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Madrid Election Talk: Period poverty, tampon tax and women’s rights

Period poverty is an umbrella term describing the socioeconomic barriers which prevent women, girls, and people who menstruate from managing their periods safely, and with dignity. It manifests itself in various ways, from the unseen (skipping meals to scrape together money for tampons and toilet paper) to the severe (lacking access to a bath or shower).
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Madrid Election Talk: Unaccompanied migrant children

First of all, we need to stop calling unaccompanied migrant children menas. This is an acronym for menores extranjeros no acompañados (unaccompanied foreign minors) – in other words, children who leave their country and travel alone without the company of an adult.
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Madrid Election Talk: The platform giving immigrants the right vote

Lavapiés, Usera, Carabanchel, Vallecas, Orcasitas and Villaverde have a high percentage of immigrant residents but also some of the lowest percentages of people with the right to vote. In Lavapiés, the most multicultural neighbourhood in Spain, up to a third of residents hold a foreign passport and, even if they're registered here and pay their taxes, they still don't have the right to vote in regional and national elections.
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Madrid Election Talk: Car emissions, the incineration plant and up to 5,000 preventable deaths

When it comes to environmental policies between the left and right in Madrid, the difference is a chasm. On the left, turning Madrid into a green capital and world leader in sustainability is one of the fundamental tenets of the campaign. On the other side, the views range from members of ultra-right Vox who deny climate change exists to the more mainstream – and arguably more dangerous – point of view of the PP, which is that climate change is happening, it just doesn’t really matter.
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Madrid Election Talk: Social housing, evictions, empty flats and Blackstone

Over the last 26 years, the right-wing government have sold off most of Madrid’s social housing, leaving the stock at an all-time low. Let's break down why this process harms young people, migrants, women, single parents and the elderly, and what Madrid's left-wing vs right-wing parties are pledging to do about it.
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Alcalá No Frills: the side of Alcalá de Henares the tourists never see

Alcalá de Henares, just an hour from Madrid, is a city steeped in history and proud of it; it is the birthplace of Miguel de Cervantes and Catherine of Aragon and every year holds the largest Medieval market in Europe. But beyond the guidebook tales, the quaint Calle Mayor and the beautifully-manicured squares lies the real Alcalá, where a no-frills paradise awaits. Let me take you on a tour of my town and help you discover some of its lesser-known historical treasures.
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Mame Mbaye, his disputed cause of death and his anti-racism legacy explained

Mame Mbaye was a Senegalese migrant who arrived in Madrid in 2006, and three years ago yesterday he died. There are two very different versions of what happened: one reported by the police and the other by his friends. The police version stands, but the 12 years leading up to his death match up far more with the account of his friends, that what killed Mame Mbaye was institutional racism.