Pilar Malla Escofet

Pilar Malla i Escofet was a Catalan teacher, social worker and public servant whose career traced the building of modern social services in Catalonia after the Franco dictatorship. Born on 9 September 1931 in El Pont d'Armentera in the Alt Camp, she died in Barcelona on 16 September 2026 at the age of 95, days after her birthday. She is remembered as Barcelona's first Síndica de Greuges (ombudsman), as a reforming director of Càritas Diocesana de Barcelona, and as a lifelong advocate for people living in poverty.

Before settling fully into Catalan public life she spent eleven years in France working with Spanish emigrants, in health centres, in the foreign-labour social service and with the International Social Service. From 1969 to 1990 she taught social work at the University School of Social Work of the Institut Catòlic d'Estudis Socials de Barcelona (ICESB). Those years shaped the practical, rights-based approach she later carried into church and government institutions.

Her long association with Càritas Diocesana de Barcelona defined much of her public identity. She headed the Department of Social Action from 1974 to 1978, returned as secretary general from 1981, and served as director from 1993 to 1998. Under her leadership the diocesan network moved from a purely charitable model toward work that placed people at the centre, promoted autonomy and treated social support as a matter of rights. She helped found and later served as vice-president of the Centre Català de Solidaritat (CECAS), which works with people facing drug dependence, and she pressed for collective solutions such as Catalonia's minimum insertion income.

Between 1978 and 1981 she was head of Social Services for the Generalitat of Catalonia at the dawn of democratic self-government. Entering electoral politics at the invitation of Pasqual Maragall, she sat in the Parliament of Catalonia from 1999 to 2003 on the Partit dels Socialistes de Catalunya list for Ciutadans pel Canvi, chairing the Social Policy Committee. In November 2004 the Barcelona City Council unanimously chose her as the city's first Síndica de Greuges, a post she held until 2010 and used to stamp a social-rights character on the young institution.

Her work against poverty brought Catalonia's highest civic honours, including the Creu de Sant Jordi in 2004, the Joan XXIII Peace Memorial (1985), the Lluís Carulla Honour Prize (1988) and Spain's Gold Cross of the Civil Order of Social Solidarity (1996). After her death, Càritas, the Barcelona Síndica's office and the Catalan Department of Social Rights all recalled her as a reference point for dignity, autonomy and service to the most vulnerable.