Lanzarote registered 130 reports of gender violence in the first quarter of 2022, according to data provided by the Observatory against Domestic and Gender Violence of the General Council of the Judiciary. Between January and March of this year, reports of gender violence have grown by 18.4% compared to the same period of the previous year.
This winter, the number of reports of gender violence that have been registered by the courts of the Islands has been 2,552, that is, 397 more than in the winter of last year, in which 2,155 reports had been registered, according to the same source.
The increase in sexist crime in the Canary Islands is higher than that registered in the entire national territory, where the number of reports increased by 11.5% in the comparison between the first quarter of 2022 and that of 2023.
According to the report of the governing body of judges, the number of women victims of gender violence also grew between January and March of 2023 compared to the same period of 2022. It went from 2,147 to 2,552, 405 more, a percentage increase of 18.9%.
According to official data, the Canary Islands registered a rate of 22.8 women victims of gender violence per 10,000 during the first quarter of this year, the fourth highest in the State after Murcia (26.4), the Balearic Islands (26) and the Valencian Community (25.6). The national average was 18.4 women victims of sexist violence per 10,000 women, 4.4 points below the Canarian ratio.
The Observatory's report offers more data: of the 2,552 women victims of violence in the Canary Islands in the study period, 1,948 were Spanish (one of them a minor) and 604 were foreign. 353 of the victims availed themselves during the processing of the process to the dispensation from the obligation to testify against their alleged aggressor, 44.1% more than in the first quarter of the previous year, when 245 women had not confirmed the reports.
During this past winter, the Canarian judicial bodies that judged cases of gender violence issued 704 convictions (15.6% more than in the first quarter of 2022), 37 acquittals (28.8% less than in the previous year), 119 free dismissal orders (+35.2%) and 956 provisional dismissal orders of the proceedings (+31.3%). The percentage of convictions was 95% (+3.1%) and that of termination by provisional dismissal, 88.9% (0.3% less than in the previous year).
Regarding the people on trial, last winter 759 people sat on the bench in the Canary Islands for sexist crimes (13.8% more than in the first quarter of 2022), with 95.0% being convicted (3.4% more than in 2022). 552 were Spanish citizens and 169 were foreigners.
As for protection orders, the Canarian courts registered 413 requests this winter, 14.8% less than in 2022. Of these, the courts did not reject any, adopted 314 (10.3% less than in 2022) and denied 99 (-26.7%).
The Observatory's study offers, for the fourth year, disaggregated data in the rest of the islands. Between January and March 2022, 156 reports of crimes of violence against women were registered in Fuerteventura; in Gran Canaria, 1,233 (one of them, a presumed homicide); in El Hierro, 7; in La Gomera, 11; in La Palma 77, and in Tenerife, 1,120. In the vast majority of cases, crimes of injury and mistreatment were reported.
