A woman holds a banner against sexist violence at the 8-M demonstration, this Wednesday, in Pamplona. Eduardo Sanz (Europa Press)
Almost 500 victims a day of gender violence.
483,176,380 throughout the year, 10.7% more than last year.
That is the balance shown by the 2022 annual statistics published this Friday by the Observatory against Domestic and Gender Violence of the General Council of the Judiciary (CGPJ).
The total number of complaints (182,073; 499 on average per day) increased by 11.8% and, although experts tend to agree that the increase in complaints has a positive reading because it indicates that the victim is not resigned to violence, It also shows that much remains to be done.
"The data reveals greater confidence in the institutions," says the president of the observatory, Ángeles Carmona, in a video released by the Council together with the publication of the data.
Among the pending subjects is the intervention of the victim's environment to detect or report a situation of violence.
Seven out of 10 complaints (71.56%) were filed by the victims themselves, either in court or at the police station, a figure that is still much higher than that of the complaints filed by their entourage, only 1.83% of the total .
Complaints derived directly from police reports represented 14.9%;
those originated by reports of injuries, 7.8% and those presented by third parties, 3.9%.
Nor has the percentage of women who reported suffering violence and then availed themselves of the exemption from the legal obligation to testify against their aggressor, a right that, according to experts, almost always generates an unwanted effect because the victim may be pressured by your family or the abuser so that they do not testify against you.
And, as on many occasions her testimony is the only proof of the crime, the courts cannot go ahead with the process.
In 2022, there were 16,839, 9.5% of the total (compared to 9.86% in 2021), the victims of violence who availed themselves of this right.
Of these, 9,540 were Spanish and 7,299 of other nationalities, which indicates that foreign women are also overrepresented in this section, as they are, although to a lesser extent, in the overall number of victims (one in three).
The percentage of convictions handed down by judicial bodies (courts for violence against women, criminal courts and provincial courts) in proceedings related to gender violence increased by almost two points and stood at 77.45% of the total, the highest percentage in the historical series.
The juvenile courts tried 305 minors for crimes of sexist violence, 18.67% more than in 2021. Measures were imposed in nine out of 10 cases, 278 in total, of which 229 were related to Spanish minors and 49 to minors of other nationalities.
Protection orders and other measures
In 2022, 47,279 protection orders were requested, of which 32,842 were granted (69.46% of the total).
The courts for violence against women granted 27,229 (68.2% of the requests they received), while those on duty agreed to 5,613 (76%).
In 48.4% of the cases, the couple relationship was maintained at the time of requesting the protection order, a percentage very similar to that of 2021 (48.9%).
Two out of every three women (66.3%) who requested protection were Spanish and 1.7% of the total (Spanish and foreign) were minors.
Regarding civil measures, whose purpose is the protection of women and minors while the criminal process is resolved, the judicial bodies issued 19,389.
The most frequent were those related to the provision of food (5,844), which represented 20.25% of the total, and those related to the attribution of housing (4,523), 15.61%.
In both cases, the percentages remained stable compared to 2021.
4,100 civil measures for the suspension of the visiting regime were also agreed.
This type of measures, which represented 14.35% of the total civil measures adopted, increased by 104% compared to 2021 as a result of the application by judicial bodies of the reform of the Criminal Procedure Law that, since June 2021, establishes the suspension of the visiting regime "when a protection order is issued with criminal measures and there are well-founded indications that minor sons and daughters have witnessed, suffered or lived" with gender violence.
The civil measure consisting of the suspension of guard and custody also increased: the 2,335 measures of this type represent 8.09% of the total civil measures agreed in 2022.