In 2023 there were in Spain 4,890 assaults with penetration. Or what is the same: thirteen rapes a day, one every two hours. A terrifying figure that, far from slowing down, skyrockets year after year. And, according to the “Crime Balance for the first half of 2024”, the number of rapes has grown by 6.9%, compared to the same period of the previous year. So, if you follow this progression, This year could end with 5,227 victims assault with penetration.
And in the face of this, the Executive of Pedro Sánchez, involved in a sea of controversies, seems to be more concerned with “cleaning” its image than with tackling this terrible scourge. Because, if we look at the data, the unstoppable increase in rapes is not the only alarming thing. As reflected in the “2023 Report on Crimes against Sexual Freedom”, since Sánchez has presided over the Government, the number of crimes against sexual freedom has not stopped growing. going from 13,782 in 2018 (the year it arrived at La Moncloa) to 21,825 in 2023. And everything indicates that this year will be even higher, since the latest crime report indicates that crimes of this nature have increased by 4.8% compared to the same period of the previous year. Not to mention the number of attacks that go unreported and do not appear in any census or official statistics.
A tangle of information from which conclusions as serious as that more than 42% of the victims of crimes against sexual freedom in 2023 were under 16 years old either that one in five crimes reported to the State Security Forces and Corps is a rape.
Lack of “strong” measures
During the presentation of the aforementioned 2023 report, the Minister of the Interior, Fernando Grande-Marlaska, announced the creation of the National Office against Sexual Violence (Onvios), with a double objective: to ensure that Security Forces have a common protocol of action and develop a system for registering, monitoring and preventing sexual crimes, that is, a IT tool that will interconnect police databasess. However, in the opinion of the PP, both the Government and the Minister of the Interior have not addressed this problem “forcefully.”
For this reason, the training led by Alberto Núñez Feijóo On November 20, a motion was registered in the Senate in order to stop “the constant increase in crimes against sexual freedom, which attacks the most intimate part of our freedom, destroys the lives of its victims and they produce rejection throughout society for men and women.” And although it does not assess the economic cost of its demands, it requests the Government to adopt the following measures:
- Provide more human, technical and economic resources to the State Security Forces and Bodies and to the medical, forensic and psychological teams specialized in sexual assaults.
- Carry out a new macro survey on violence against women, from the Government Delegation against Gender Violence of the Ministry of Equality, taking into account that The last one published is from 2019.
- That the recently created National Office against Sexual Violence articulate educational methods aimed at the population imprisoned for sexual crimes. Likewise, present a balance of the Strategic Plan for the Prevention of Sexual Violence for the period 2023 and 2024.
- Publish the number of people convicted of sexual crimes who have benefited from the application of Organic Law 10/2022, known as the law of “only yes means yes”since its approval and update this information monthly, both the releases such as sentence reductions.
- Create from the Ministry of Children and Youth a State Plan for the prevention of sexual cybercrime and others sexual crimes against minors.
Marlaska’s “failed” proposals
The PP reproaches the Executive for its apathy and lack of action in the face of the incessant increase in sexual assaults. It must be remembered that 90% of the victims are women and that during the last year 13 rapes a day and 55 sexual assaults (without penetration) were reported. We must also emphasize the exponential increase in victims under 16 years of age. And despite these data, the opposition accuses the Government of not addressing the problem forcefully.
Thus, they point out that among the proposals announced by Grande-Marlaska was the “National Strategic Plan against Trafficking and Exploitation of Human Beings 2021-2023.” An announcement that, far from being the panacea to solve the problem, It is nothing more than the continuity of the plan approved during the Mariano Rajoy government (comprehensive plan to combat trafficking in women and girls for sexual exploitation 2015-2019). An initiative focused, as its name indicates, on trafficking and the exploitation of trafficked persons.
But the minister has also rarely referred to the controversial “yes means yes” law as a tool to fight against sexual abuse. However, the PP insists that “this has not been the case, and we only have to consult the data.” Finally, regarding its latest “Strategic Plan for the Prevention of Sexual Violence” of 2023, the popular ones consider that “in view of the data from the Ministry of the Interior itself, it seems that it’s not working as it should.”