The worst fears of the classic protective father of his teenage daughter are fulfilled. She is very likely to be exposed to annoying and insulting comments and messages with sexual content and will have to deal with unwanted intimate propositions.
The bad news is that these behaviors are on the rise and are more likely to happen to you than not to happen to you and may lead you to change some habits. The good news is that young people increasingly identify these actions as sexual violence, something that has nothing to do with them but with the other.
75% of young people aged 12 and over, according to the Survey on School Coexistence in Catalonia, prepared by the Department of the Interior and Education, believe that situations of disrespect are experienced when not abuse, generally made invisible and that, being Verbalized and added together, they account for the frequency and intensity with which children and adolescents, mostly women, suffer from them.
The cases occur in their environment, inside or outside the educational center, by classmates or people, minors or adults, outside their school. This perception of bullying is higher among girls (86%) than among boys (65%). And it is not occasional. Half of those surveyed believe that situations of this type occur “frequently” or “very frequently”.
This is the belief of what happens, then there is what happens. The main victims have female names. Half of the female population of the institutes is recognized as such. But men are not unscathed either: one in four boys also claims to have been bullied.
Already in the last grades of primary school (from 9 to 12 years old) warning signs are detected. Two out of ten students say they have received inappropriate comments (the profile or age of the authors is not specified). Followed by the receipt of messages with sexual content (9%) and the request for nude photos (3.4%). It should be noted that the same survey indicates that 60% of children of these ages have a mobile phone, which could explain how these requests slip through.
Abuses also appear in the responses. The induction of the minor to make unwanted touching another person is 2.2%. In primary school, the percentage of boys who feel attacked is higher than that of girls.
“Our hypothesis is that it may be related to their sexual condition, which we will investigate in future editions,” said its director, Sergi Mosteiro, in the presentation of the survey, who indicated that one of the main reasons for bullying, after physical appearance, is sexual orientation.
Those data lightning bolts in elementary school warn of a storm in high school. And so it is. Negative experiences increase with age. They continue in boys (a quarter feel like a victim, especially for receiving comments and demand for photos), but it is overwhelming in girls. Half of the students between the ages of 12 and 16 have felt attacked in some way. From that half it goes to 75% of disrespected girls between 16 and 18 years old (high school or FP).
They mostly receive sexual comments, messages, requests for photos, approaches, follow-ups… This happens to between 30 and 40% of adolescents. But they also touch them without wanting to (20%), offer them money or other favors in exchange for sex (12.7%) or, in the worst case, sexually assault them (3.3%).
All this climate establishes a certain fear in young women for which they adopt precautionary strategies. For example, they affirm that they change itineraries from home to school (36%) or stop being on social networks (18%) to avoid being exposed. “From a young age, girls begin to experience situations of victimization and that marks their personal experience as we later see in the adult surveys,” explains Alba Alfageme, psychologist and chief of staff for security and transversal policies of the Interior.
Is this climate getting better, with more sexual education, or is it getting worse? Regarding the 2016-2017 survey, violence has increased in all concepts, and a lot, although, according to Alfageme, it could be due to a better identification of situations by adolescents.
Annoying comments have gone from 13% to the current 28%. Messages, from 10% to 24%, nude photos have increased from 16% to 22%, approaches or follows from 14% to 20%. Touching with or without threats has doubled (from 6% to 12%, and from 1.7% to 3.1%), as well as offers of money (now at 8%. Sexual assaults have gone from 0 .6% to 2.5%.
In fact, the best identification is observed in the responses given by adolescents in relationships, where, here, yes, the level of aggressiveness has dropped, although there are still 34% of young people who maintained a disrespectful relationship.
Young people believe that you don’t have to suffer for being with another person, you don’t have to make an effort to keep the other person by your side, you don’t have to stop seeing friends, jealousy isn’t a sign of love, and boys aren’t violent because they provoke the girls.
They are aware of all this. The only “worrying” point in which they agree, and more men (with a score of 6.9) than women (5.4), is that “there are also many women who attack men, but we don’t talk about that.”
When reality is analyzed, however, it is observed that there are still attempts to control the other. A quarter of the respondents (boys and girls) were required to explain where they were going, with whom and how they were dressed. And around 17% had their mobile phones checked.
They, one in ten, receive more coercion or admit that they “yelled at you, ridiculed, humiliated you alone or in front of friends”. 8% were sexually assaulted and 4.5% physically.
