MADRID - Despite aggressive government efforts, domestic violence is on the rise in Spain. Last year, 73 women died at home at the hands of their partners - roughly, one every five days. That was an increase over the 2009 total of 55.

While there is a surprising lack of comparative statistics around Europe - some countries do not keep them, while others that do keep them use different criteria - the increase in Spain dismayed what many here see as an enduring and ugly feature of their society.

“Fatalities are sadly only the tip of the iceberg in terms of how much violence actually takes place, and never even gets denounced,” said Teresa Cavanna, a lawyer specializing in domestic violence .

The Socialist government of Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero came to power in 2004 promising to shed Spain’s reputation as an ultraconservative and male-dominated society. He appointed equal numbers of men and women to his cabinet. Gay marriage became legal. Rules restricting divorce and abortion were loosened.

But efforts to protect women have fallen below expectations. “We are not doing well,” Interior Minister Alfredo Perez Rubalcaba said in October, describing the number of victims for 2010 up to that point - 58 - as “horrible.”

Spain overhauled its laws in 2004 to make it easier for victims to seek legal redress: orders for abusers to stay away from victims were strengthened, and aggressive behavior like issuing death threats was deemed criminal.

Spanish courts have since passed 145,000 sentences against male aggressors; on average, those convicted have been sentenced to about two years in prison, Ms. Cavanna said. In the past six years, judges also awarded special protection to almost 141,000 women, or 73 percent of the requests. But the number of women who have abandoned legal proceedings before a final ruling has soared 46 percent in three years.

Ms. Cavanna noted that one of her clients was awaiting a ruling 20 months after starting legal action. “Changing laws does not solve the problem of malfunctioning courts,” she said, “nor does it change overnight attitudes in a society where the machismo ideology is still firmly anchored ,” even in the courts.

Only a quarter of the women killed in 2010 had previously reported their attacker for abusive behavior. Even women who do file reports may not get action. On December 18, for example, a woman allegedly stabbed by her boyfriend had gone to the police three weeks earlier to complain . She received no special protection.

Below the grim statistics lies an impassioned debate about whether this society can protect women - or, indeed, weaker men - from assault by someone physically stronger. Furthermore, should society try to help women by offering treatment to abusive men?

Asociacion Aspacia, a private group pioneering efforts to help reinsert men who abuse women into Spanish society, has very limited financing. It hopes to treat 87 aggressors this year .

“Spain has made huge advances in helping the victims but very little in dealing with the men who are the cause of the problem,” said Andres Quinteros, the program director of Aspacia.

But Ana Maria Perez del Campo, president of the Asociacion de Mujeres Separadas y Divorciadas, which helps abused women, says, “I’ve never met a converted wife beater.”

Aspacia says that 65 percent of the men who have sought treatment there have completed the six-month program.

About 25 percent dropped out; the rest either had their application rejected or were dropped by Aspacia . Mr. Quinteros noted that “changing somebody with a very serious identity problem requires longer than six months.”

But therapies do yield results, he said. The course, which is supervised by two psychologists, starts with recognition of the problem, followed by therapy to control emotions and to avert relapses.

At a time of governmental austerity, women’s groups are demanding that limited financing be reserved for what they see as more urgent issues, like psychological evaluations for plaintiffs.

Amalia Fernandez Doyague, secretary general of the Asociacion de Mujeres Juristas Themis, which offers legal counsel to victims of domestic violence, said that resources should not go to “treatments that many men follow only in order to try to avoid spending time in jail.”

Juan, a convicted abuser , hopes that his treatment from Aspacia will allow him eventually to return to his partner, a mother of two with whom he was living until last spring, when in a drunken rage he threw a remote control at her face.

The woman needed four stitches ; Juan has been ordered to stay away pending a court ruling.

After an assault in 2009 on the same woman, he spent four months in prison. “This course is helping me put things in perspective in ways in which a stay in prison certainly never did,” he said. His drinking had risen, he said, because of difficulties in keeping a steady job.

Spain’s unemployment has soared to 20 percent as part of the global financial meltdown, which “can certainly help precipitate violent conduct by raising stress levels ,” Mr. Quinteros said.

Juan sounded determined. “I have to cure myself, because my behavior has put at risk everything I care about,” he said. “Beyond my own personal problems, this is the cancer of our society, and we really need to get rid of it.”


By RAPHAEL MINDER