Adolescent gender violence has increased by 212% in the Valencian Community in the period between 2018 and 2022 according to the report from the Foundation to Help Children and Adolescents at Risk (ANAR). A worrying figure that represents a difference of 124.8 percentage points more than in the rest of Spain. From the administrations, the reality shown by the figures is confirmed and is seen in cases such as that of the five minors arrested for the rape of a 15-year-old girl in Dolores, Alicante, known this Thursday.
“Minors are normalizing certain attitudes and there is a setback in equality,” highlighted the second vice president and councilor of Social Services, Equality and Housing, Susana Camarero, who this Thursday accompanied the ANAR Foundation in the presentation of the results of the latest report carried out by the entity on the evolution of violence against women in childhood and adolescence.
In the presentation, Diana Díaz, director of the ANAR help lines for minors, has broken down a swarm of data on the care that the entity provides to minors and adolescents and which reveals that the bulk of the consultations are, both in the Valencian Community as in the rest of Spain, on gender violence. They are 53.8% of the cases.
Díaz has assured that both the cases and the testimonies collected “are serious” and has pointed out that, despite the figures, 57% of adolescents are not aware of the reality they live. “The myths of romantic love or the justification of jealousy,” she explained, are hidden behind it.
In his analysis, Díaz also explained that the age at which victims begin to be victims is 15 years old, an average age in the Valencian Community that exceeds the Spanish average, whose average is 16 years old, ages “every increasingly earlier and more vulnerable.
On the other hand, in the time analyzed by ANAR, the incidence of technology in this type of violence against women and minors has also grown. In fact, technologies are involved in 83.2% of cases of adolescent gender violence, 3.5 percentage points more than the Spanish average. “Technology is a very powerful weapon for the aggressor,” said Díaz.
Likewise, they also perceive an increase in group sexual assaults, the so-called ‘packs’. In the last ten years these have gone from 2.1% to representing 10.5% of cases.
The study presented this Tuesday has been prepared by the ANAR Foundation through a grant from the Ministry of Equality. The Foundation is based in the Valencian Community.