Gender-based violence causes serious health problems for victims, both physical and mental. In addition to assaults and physical damage, gender violence can cause depression, post-traumatic stress, anxiety, insomnia, eating disorders and suicide attempts, among others.
In judicial terms, these consequences are defined as “primary victimization”: they are the damages that a person suffers directly as a result of a criminal act.
However, women victims of gender violence can also suffer “secondary victimization” by the authorities. In this case, the women see their story questioned and become victims again, which is why this phenomenon is also known as revictimization.
An example of revictimization would be when the victim goes to the authorities after an assault and does not receive adequate support or advice from the police or the judicial authorities that attend to them. Another example would be when, during the trial, the woman has to relive the traumatic situation and once again assume the role of victim, which causes great anguish and discomfort.
The re-victimization of the victims generates a great social debate and calls into question the role of the authorities and the administration, which do not always know how to protect the victim. One of the most recent cases that has made this phenomenon relevant is that of the footballer Dani Alves, in pretrial detention without bail since January for an alleged sexual assault.
The victim claims that Alves slapped her, locked her in a nightclub bathroom and raped her. The judge commissioned an expert medical report to find out the consequences of this aggression; However, now Alves’ lawyer wants to repeat this psychological test with a professional paid by the footballer’s defense (which indicates that he wants to question the young woman’s version).
According to Alves’ lawyer, the objective is to determine if the girl’s story and symptoms are compatible with sexual assault. On her part, the victim’s lawyer has denounced that this strategy only seeks to discredit the victim.
Revictimization does not only occur in the institutional sphere. Sometimes, the treatment in the media can cause the victim to be judged (again) by public opinion.
In 2020, the Violence Observatory denounced that the media coverage of the La Manada case contributed to the re-victimization of the victim. In this case, a man was sentenced to two years in prison for posting on Twitter a photo of the victim being assaulted by one of the rapists.
The dissemination of the image caused friends, relatives and acquaintances of the girl, who until now were unaware of the situation, to recognize her. According to the Observatory, the complainant feared being identified by third parties and, as a consequence, she was forced to abandon her university studies and went to live abroad for a while.
In October 2022, the Observatory against Domestic and Gender Violence published the Guide to good practices for taking statements from victims of gender violence with the aim of generating security for victims of sexist violence when they face criminal proceedings.
According to this guide, Public Administrations have the obligation to provide victims with protection and care that prevents secondary victimization. “It is not possible that the contact of the victim supposes a new additional front to the one that has already been suffering at the hands of his physical and/or mental victimizer,” the text collects.
In addition, this re-victimization increases mistrust of the system and makes many women afraid to report a sexual assault or abuse due to the anguish generated by the judicial process.
Among the most important recommendations, the Observatory highlights that victims cannot be treated by making them feel guilty and that the veracity of what they say should not be questioned.
