In Spain, only 8% of women who are victims of sexual violence outside the couple decide to report to the Courts, according to the latest Macro survey of violence against women. Underreporting hides a polyhedral reality where the psychological consequences of the aggressions coexist with the fear of revictimization and social rejection. This is what the magistrate of the Social Chamber of the Superior Court of Justice of the Canary Islands, Gloria Poyatos, assures in an interview with La Voz.
In the last week, several anonymous testimonies published on the social media account of journalist Cristina Fallarás pointed to the then deputy of Sumar Iñigo Errejón as a sexual aggressor. These publications have brought down the figure of the politician, known for his speeches in favor of feminism and against sexist violence, and have opened a debate about the new ways that women have found to make their experiences public and point out aggressors. It has also shown the seams of the system that does not reach victims of sexual violence.
"Whether they report to the Justice system or the police, they are still victims of crime because reporting is a right," says Judge Gloria Poyatos. "We must understand the victim, what situation are they in? And why did they have to do it, perhaps, through Twitter? Well, maybe they didn't believe her, perhaps because the aggressor had a double personality or a prestige that did not correspond to him," continues the president of the social and cultural association for women Mararía, Nieves Rosa Hernández.
The anonymous testimonies of victims who tell their experiences on social networks, through Canarian accounts such as Hastaelkonejo or the newly released Mujeresdepalike, have led to the Canarian Metoo for months. Already at the beginning of the year, a testimony on social networks and others that joined later brought to the fore the alleged sexist attitudes of the Canarian filmmaker Armando Ravelo.
"Social networks are here to stay and it is another means to be able to report," says Hernández. In this line, the magistrate of the Court of Violence against Women number 2 of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Auxiliadora Díaz, points out that the exposure on networks "is valid" and another way to "communicate that a criminal act is being committed." However, she emphasizes that "for it to have legal consequences, it is necessary for it to go to the judicial sphere."
At this point, Díaz exposes the importance of public institutions launching "immediately" the care centers for victims of sexual violence, announced by the Government, to serve as spaces where victims can seek legal advice if they are not "sure that the material they have is sufficient," receive psychological and economic assistance. "Then you will go with all the evidence, or with what is necessary, and you will not suddenly arrive at the judicial body and give rise to the lack of evidence leading to an acquittal," continues Judge Díaz.
The possibility that victims consider going to the Courts or reporting publicly also depends on society understanding that "they are reprehensible acts," since for "a very long time" it was understood that "they were totally lawful," continues Auxiliadora Díaz. "Sexual freedom is a manifestation of gender violence, which is still quite tolerated by our society," she adds, while pointing out as examples "the social tolerance" towards the consumption of prostitution and pornography even if they are forms of sexual violence.
The stigmatization of victims
"We are talking more about the victims who have made that complaint or the time it has taken them, and we are doing wrong by focusing on the victim, the victim is already a victim and has enough with that," says the president of Mararía. The public and judicial complaint, as already happened in the case of sexual assault by the president of the Spanish Football Federation Luis Rubiales to the footballer Jennifer Hermoso in the middle of the World Cup celebration or with the actress Elisa Mouilaá after her police complaint to Íñigo Errejón, confronts the survivors with a new process of revictimization and social questioning.
"Revictimization, just as it occurs on certain occasions in institutions and there are rules to prevent and avoid it, also occurs within society and on social networks, which are nothing more than a reflection of a society that is still tremendously sexist," says the magistrate of the Social Chamber of the TSJC.
This situation "is aggravated in crimes that mostly victimize women." Sexual violence "is not a prototypical crime, but one that has many specialties, especially the impact it has on the victim and that generates trauma, shame, stigma and fear," deepens Judge Poyatos. The women who survive show a "tendency to try to put aside that traumatic memory." To this is added that the victims are "afraid of what they may find if they file a formal complaint," "especially, the fear of secondary victimization. Something that exists in all institutional systems in the world and that is why there is international regulations that aims to combat it."
"The fact of exposing oneself on networks requires a lot of courage because one is even exposing oneself to those stereotypes falling on them," continues Judge Auxiliadora Díaz. Another of the difficulties faced by women who decide to publicly expose an experience as victims of sexual violence is the questioning and the fear of not being believed. "We have examples of sentences that have been known in Spain and other parts of the world where victims are treated and questions are formulated that address this type of crime in a very inadequate way for a person who has suffered a trauma from that situation. All this generates a panorama of rejection for the victims," says the lawyer Poyatos.
Examples of revictimization within the Justice system were seen in the sentence handed down by the first judge who tried the group rape of La Manada and who assured that the images of the rape showed "sex in an atmosphere of revelry."
"At no time can we homogenize that there is a single behavior. Each one has its own profile, I cannot generalize and say that they all do this because it is not true and it is not scientific or correct. Each person has their process, their time," says Nieves Rosa Hernández, about the danger of falling into the ideal victim syndrome, and only giving veracity to that person who fits with the parameters of what we socially understand is a victim and how they should act.
Socially, women like the actress and presenter Barbara Rey were not believed as victims of gender violence because they did not fit the role of the ideal victim.
At this point, from Mararía they highlight the importance of support networks in women who are conditioned when asking for help because they have children to protect, if they do not have economic capacity "and many other aspects."
The presumption of innocence
These social complaints have also pointed to the former basketball player and current president of CB Granca, Sitapha Savané, publicly accused of sexual and sexist violence. Savané has denied his involvement and has announced that he will take legal action for allegedly seeing his right to honor harmed.
Regarding the possibility that there are testimonies that falsely point to the aggressors, the magistrate of the Court of Violence against Women Auxiliadora Díaz states that "when a victim of violence reports in the judicial sphere or, on social networks, with even more caution they are not going to lie to us." Judicially, the latest report from the State Attorney General's Office, from 2022, calculates that false reports of gender violence are only 0.01% of those received by the judicial bodies throughout the country.
