The Clínic Hospital, a center of reference in the city of Barcelona for the care of sexual assaults on people over 16 years of age, has registered more and more violent cases in the last year than in the previous year. At least one in five assaults is suspected of having been facilitated by drugs.
There is no respite for this chakra. Since the decline facilitated by the confinements and limitations of mobility caused by the pandemic in 2020, the figures of violations are climbing in the Catalan capital year after year.
Between January and October of this year, the Clinic treated 587 victims, 5.6% more than the same period last year (524 women, 89%, and 64 men). For the first time, more than 70 women were treated in a single month: it happened in June (72) and September (79). Almost all of the assaults (99%) have been committed by men.
The youngest treated was 16 years old, and the oldest, 81. The 18 to 25-year-old group is the most representative, with 218 victims.
“The situation we have is absolutely dramatic and absolutely intolerable”, lamented the general director of the Clinic, Josep Maria Campistol, during the presentation of the report: “We are talking that by the end of the year we will have 700 people treated, a proportion of two every day And these are the ones they sell, surely there are more”.
Campistol pointed out that the victims are getting younger and younger and demanded legislative and educational changes to address the situation and reach a point of zero tolerance for sexual violence.
The data on the type of attacks (60% of women have been raped and 67% of men have suffered penetration), the victims and the circumstances of the assault do not experience appreciable variations compared to previous exercises (the hospital has treated 2,514 cases in the last 5 years), although a disturbing detail stands out: 37% of women have suffered physical injuries, when last year they represented 20%.
This suggests an increase in the violence of the episodes, according to hospital officials. Thus, 61 women and 6 men suffered, in addition to sexual assault, moderate to serious injuries resulting from blows, bites to the breasts, hair, burns, scratches or asphyxiation. Shocking experiences that have consequences: 62% of all female victims have been linked to the program for the prevention and treatment of psychological sequelae.
“There is a psychological impact in one hundred percent of cases, but having such an aggressive physical component makes the psychological prognosis much worse,” explains Lluïsa Garcia Esteve, president of the hospital’s gender violence and health committee.
Many of the violations are preceded by the consumption of substances that alter behavior and 62% of the victims state that they were in a recreational context. 66.5% of women and 62.5% of men report having consumed alcohol at least six hours before the assault. And it is suspected that at least one in five have been facilitated by drugs. In the majority of the 128 cases analyzed for signs of intoxication in the first 24 hours, the presence of substances has been confirmed through analysis. Alcohol, cocaine, cannabis and amphetamines are, in that order, the most frequent.
Where do the attacks take place? Mainly (46%) in a home. 16% of women were assaulted in public, and 10% of the total number of victims, in nighttime entertainment venues, with cases in the toilets of nightclubs and bars. There are not many safe places: violations have been reported in cars, on public transport, in workplaces, in hotels…
If you need to be suspicious of strangers, of acquaintances even more so. In 49.2% of cases (51.5% in women) the victim knew the aggressor. In fact, 7% of women have been assaulted by their partner or ex-partner, and in all these cases they have suffered rape.
And yet, as has been the case in previous years, only 4.6% of assaulted women reported the incident before going to the emergency room and 46% plan to report it. Among the other half, 19% refuse to report and 31% ask for time to think about it.
