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MADRID (Reuters) - Tens of thousands of protesters, many wearing purple, marched through Madrid and other Spanish cities on Sunday to mark the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women.

Protesters chanted slogans and carried signs reading “For Those Who Aren’t With Us” and “Justice”. In Madrid, the protest ended with a reading of the names of the 44 women killed in Spain last year in incidents of domestic violence.

Earlier this year, women across Spain went on strike and held hundreds of rallies to protest against gender inequality. The two largest unions said around 6 million women took part in the strike, the first of its kind to be held in Spain on International Women’s Day.

Spanish courts received more than 166,000 gender violence complaints in 2017, up 16 percent on the previous year, according to the General Council of the Judiciary.