The Victim of Gender Violence Assistance service 1-1-2 Canary Islands has reported an increase in emergency calls due to gender violence, also in girls and minors. This space, financed by the Canary Islands Institute of Equality (ICI), registered nearly 8,000 calls in the first half of this year (7,957, which is 11% more than in the same period last year).
In these first six months, emergency calls (imminent danger for the victim) represented 61% of the total, two and a half points more than last year.
According to the records of this first semester, 113 calls were received from girls, which is 25% more than last year, in which 84 alerts were received for cases of gender violence in this age range.
Candelaria Delgado, Minister of Social Welfare, Equality, Youth, Childhood and Families, expressed, in the context of a visit to the 1-1-2 room that houses the Telephone Assistance Service for Victims of Gender Violence, her concern about the increase in sexist violence among minors according to the greater volume of calls received.
“We know that gender violence has no age, and as always - the counselor specified - this increase in calls may mean that the telephone protection service is better known and minors have more information and tools to detect gender violence, feel more socially protected to report this type of situation and, therefore, a violence that previously remained hidden is made visible", explained the Minister of Equality.
"But even so, it is still unacceptable that boys continue to reproduce such deplorable sexist behaviors, sexual abuse continues to be reported, or girls under 18 are threatened and forced to have protection to ensure their lives,” she stressed.
Currently, 66 minors under 18 years of age are in the Comprehensive Monitoring system in cases of Gender Violence (VioGén) in the islands, of which two are at high risk and 13 at medium risk, that is, situations in which the security forces have detected a special combination of indicators that significantly increase the probability that the aggressor will exert very serious or lethal violence against the victim.
In addition, according to the latest data from the CGPJ, in the first quarter of the year six boys were prosecuted in juvenile courts and all six were convicted with judicial measures (one of them was 14 years old). In this period, 11 cases were registered (almost three times more than last year).
The counselor expressed the firm purpose of this Government to “reinforce the resources, services and budget for the care and especially for the prevention of gender violence from childhood, in schools, and thus favor the gradual cultural change that our society is already walking towards to banish any sexist attitude and the greatest exponent of inequality between the sexes, gender violence”.
And she reiterated the need for “the whole society to actively get involved in the fight against sexist violence, calling, alerting this 1-1-2 service that is provided every day of the year and 24 hours a day, even anonymously, at the slightest suspicion it is our obligation to alert. Our goal is to increasingly isolate abusers and put an end once and for all to the concealing silence that sometimes perpetuates mistreatment and abuse for years”.
In the analysis of the remaining ages, 1,669 women were between 18 and 35 years old (the previous year there were 1,627); 1,952 were between 36 and 55 years old (1,867 in 2022); 441 were women between 56 and 75 years old (400 in 2022); 51 were over 76 years old (52 in the same period of the previous year).
The managing director of GSC, Juan Ignacio Pérez-Nievas, who manages 1-1-2 Canarias, recalled the importance of this service being located in the emergency and security coordination center, since it is where the activation of police and health resources is carried out in each case, which shortens response times in case of emergency.
The counselor was accompanied on the visit by the director of the Canary Islands Institute of Equality (ICI), Ana Brito, the director of 1-1-2 Canarias, Moisés Sánchez, the manager of the public company GSC, Juan Ignacio Pérez-Nievas and the head of the room in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Alexis Moreno.
May and June, the months with the highest emergency
In the month-by-month analysis, June was the month with the highest volume of calls (1,453) and the months of May and June in which the highest percentage of emergency calls were made (63% of the total).
The emergency devices (DEMA) that the ICI maintains with the island councils had to be activated in the first semester on 1,142 occasions, and shelter had to be given to 174 women and 93 daughters and sons who had to leave home to protect themselves from their abuser and had no other alternative accommodation. The calls in those six months forced the mobilization of 4,557 police resources and 405 health resources.
The aggressor was in the vast majority the partner (47%), followed by the ex-partner (27%), son (2%), and unknown (1%), father (0.60%) and brother (0.70%).
Regarding the type of violence, 46% was physical violence without sexual assault, 3.5% physical violence with sexual assault. 41% non-physical violence. The rest were consultation or coordination calls.
A large part of the calls were alerted by the victim herself (41%), followed by accidental callers (26%), an institution (22%), a family member (4%) and the ATENPRO service (2%).
