Only two of the five minors investigated for the group rape of an 11-year-old girl in a Badalona shopping center (a sixth is being sought) may be punished, if there is a conviction. The others, who have not yet turned 14, will get away with this alleged sexual assault. According to the law they are imputable.
And it is not an isolated case. Last year, the general directorate of Child Care and Adolescence (Dgaia) opened a case against 1,023 unaccountable minors referred by the police or the Prosecutor's Office. A hundred of those cases were crimes against sexual freedom.
Badalona's group aggression at such early ages reopens the debate on whether or not the minor's criminal age should be lowered. The legislator has never liked, however, to change laws on the fly. But reflection is inevitable when episodes like this are repeated (a girl allegedly raped at knifepoint in a bathroom by children only 11 or 12 years old) due to the alarm and lack of understanding that this generates.
The last to revive the debate, just a few months ago, was the superior prosecutor of the Valencian Community, Teresa Gisbert, in favor of lowering the minimum criminal age for sexual crimes committed by minors from 14 to 12 years. But she clarifies: this must be done with an eye toward re-educational sanctions and not with the intention of imposing "pure punishments." The reason for her request? These sexual assaults committed by children under 14 years of age are increasing.
Gisbert's proposal had a quick response from entities that work with minors. Save the Children is against lowering the criminal age to 12 years and insists that the focus must be "on prevention" and not "on punishment". This is stated by Catalina Perazzo, from this NGO.
The Professional Association of Institutions for Minors (Apime) in Valencia agrees: children cannot be treated as if they were adults and more efforts must be devoted to prevention.
The debate brings up the issue of uncontrolled consumption of pornography and violent content from a very early age. "It cannot be that the sexual education of our children is imposed by what they see in those videos," adds Perazzo.
The Badalona case uncovers this reality. “The construction of sexuality based only on the consumption of such violent pornography takes an expensive toll,” acknowledges this Save the Children spokeswoman. And the most worrying thing is that 30% of minors between the ages of 12 and 17 confess that "these channels are their only source of information to develop their sexual and affective capacities."
Perazzo does not believe that "punishment" is the solution to a "social and not criminal" problem. There is also no record that the Ministry of Justice is studying a lowering of the criminal age. Perazzo understands the "legitimate" impotence when these children return to their homes "as if nothing had happened." But "criminal law should always be the last response." The first? "Work on prevention and deploy all means to re-educate."
The debate opens other questions. If the criminal age is lowered, where do we set the limit? The question was formulated by the Minister of Justice of Valencia, Gabriela Bravo, after hearing the prosecutor's proposal. And she answered herself with another question: “If tomorrow a seven-year-old boy kills his father, will we have to lower the criminal age to seven?
The statistics would give wings, however, to those who advocate a change in this law. In the juvenile prosecutor's offices, the increase in the files of cases involving girls and boys under 14 years of age who are protagonists of acts that go far beyond altercations, vandalism or theft is no longer surprising. These files speak of sexual assaults, very serious injuries, sexist violence or assaults on parents. And all cases are closed without criminal punishment.
The Dgaia confirms it. In recent years, more cases of sexual abuse involving children under 14 years of age have been detected, a fact that could also be due to greater awareness and awareness of reporting. The fact that they are not imputable does not mean that these girls and boys are not acted on. The strategy of the administrations to redirect these criminal behaviors is in the social services. In the most serious cases, family, school and social monitoring of these early delinquents is carried out to redirect them. Although this (it depends a lot on the environment) is not always achieved.
In the case of Badalona, the journalist Anna Punsí, who gave the exclusive news, pointed out yesterday in El món to RAC1, that "re-education will not be easy here". The minors, who did not know the victim, come from unstructured environments and some of them, those over 14 years of age, could already have a criminal record. Acting in these environments if there is no family involvement is not easy.
The Dgaia has opened an information file for these adolescents, confirmed yesterday Ester Cabanes, head of the area. It is about investigating the origin of their behavior, talking to the families to determine if there may have been neglect, if they have mental pathologies or if they have been victims of sexual abuse to determine what type of work is done with the child. Parental guardianship is rarely withdrawn.
