Victoria Kent

Victoria Kent (Málaga, 1898 - New York, 1987) was a Spanish lawyer and republican politician.

She was affiliated to Radical Socialist Republican Party and came to fame in 1930 for defending - at a court martial - Álvaro de Albornoz, who would shortly afterwards go on to become minister of justice and later the future president of the Republican government in exile (1947 to 1949 and 1949 to 1951). She became a member of the first Parliament of the Second Spanish Republic in 1931. That same year, the President of the Republic, Niceto Alcalá-Zamora, appointed her Director General of Prisons, a post she held until 1934, and she actively continued the reforms in the prison service that had been started by Concepción Arenal.

Victoria Kent opposed women's right to vote, arguing that they would be very much influenced by the Catholic priests. In fact, women's right to vote was approved in 1931, and both Kent and Clara Campoamor lost their seats to the conservative majority in 1933.

After the Spanish Civil War, Victoria Kent went into exile.

In New York she published the "Ibérica" review from 1954 to 1974 [es [http://nuevayork.cervantes.es/Biblioteca/Fichas/28939_27_1.shtml Catálogo biblioteca del Instituto Cervantes de Nueva York] , "Ibérica : por la libertad ", Victoria Kent editor.] . News for Spanish people exiled in the United States came out in this publication.

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