He is not the gentleman who tries to tempt children with candy, nor the one who bides his time in a dark alley: 85% of child and adolescent abusers are known to the victims and, moreover, the majority are socially integrated. The established image that the family is a protective element in itself is also not true: half of the assaults take place in the family environment.
The data from the care unit for violence against children and youth at the Vall d'Hebron hospital (EMMA team) dismantles a series of myths about this scourge, such as the fact that the victims are forever scarred. It is not true, says Mireia Forner, clinical psychologist at the unit. The longer it takes victims to reveal the facts, the more complicated the symptomatology and treatment, "but when a person is able to reveal a situation of violence, if he has good support from the social environment and receives good treatment, it can be recovered".
It has been dedicated to this since it was created, three years ago, by the EMMA team, the reference device for attention to violence against 16-year-olds in the city of Barcelona. In the last year, the workforce of paediatricians, psychologists, social workers and administrators has doubled, which has treated 314 patients, a figure similar to those of previous years, but far from the true dimension.
The cases dealt with are a tiny fraction of a reality that, according to estimates by EU bodies, can affect one in five minors. But they provide an x-ray of the scale of the problem. For example, 80% of the victims have suffered sexual violence, the most widespread modality ahead of physical violence (14%) and neglect in the care of children (2%). A girl of an average age of ten who reveals the facts to her mother (it is mothers who receive half of the confessions) remains the characteristic profile of the patient treated for sexual violence, which in 87% of cases he was between 8 and 12 years old when the events happened, says Anna Fàbregas, coordinator of the EMMA team.
Girls (79%) are more victims of sexual violence than boys. Regarding the profile of the aggressor, he is a man in 97% of the situations, usually an adult, but 26% are under 18 years old and 13% are of a similar age to the victim. Six of the teenagers treated in the last year had become pregnant. 60% of victims have psychopathology, which requires specialized treatment. More than a third (36%) suffer from post-traumatic stress, and the rest have disorders, such as depression, self-harming behavior or anxiety.
