For a long time, there has been a lack of a rigorous study that, beyond confirming that sexual violence continues to rise, tries to delve into the reasons for this increase and dissects what exactly is happening. Yesterday the Mossos d'Esquadra took a first step by detailing the complaints of the first four months of the year in Catalonia. An accurate x-ray that dispels two myths: there is no chemical submission in nighttime leisure spaces and there are no packs either.
What there is is an increase that does not cease and that also does not clarify this black figure that goes between 70% and 90% of sexual assaults that are not reported. In the first four months of the year, the Mossos attended every two hours to a woman who claimed to have been the victim of a sexual crime. And this chapter includes everything from touching, to exhibitionism, aggression with penetration; known authors, unknown. The complaints, which are 1,247, have increased by 19% in relation to the same period in 2022.
Since January, the Catalan police have had a program that allows each complaint to be dissected to the point of answering about 400 parameters. Data that makes it possible to obtain very specific information, which comes to be considered police intelligence and which allows the Mossos to work in two areas: in prevention or in the operational strategy when a phenomenon is detected that requires specific action.
But let's go back to the data, to this x-ray of sexual violence in Catalonia that yesterday was offered by the commissioner in charge of the General Criminal Investigation Office, Ramon Chacón, and spokeswoman inspector Montserrat Escudé.
The fact that in these four months there have been 13 cases of sexual assault by chemical submission and only twice the incidents happened in a night club does not only demystify the belief that at any moment something can be put in your drink , but it helps to focus prevention work in nightclubs on other aspects. However, Chacón insisted that one cannot lower one's guard because chemical submission is one thing and vulnerability to drugs or alcohol is another, which does happen a lot. The commissioner also wanted to congratulate the workers and managers of discotheques and bars for the work against sexual violence that they are carrying out to eradicate this behavior from the rooms. In fact, almost 80% of crimes in these spaces are touching. Behaviors that the victims would probably not have reported a year ago, but that now both the nightclub and the police are helping to take the step and explain the facts.
The pack concept that arose after the multiple aggression in San Fermín and that refers to the group of men that goes out hunting and acts in a coordinated manner is not related to the 58 allegations of group violations. There is no definite pattern, but in half of the cases, the victim knew one of their aggressors. In 34% of the episodes all members of the group assaulted the woman and, in almost all cases, these were groups of two or three men.
In the chapter on minors, some group attacks began as school bullying. They are assaults that do not have a sexual purpose, but rather humiliation and vexation to the victim. Chacón has related the case of a girl of just six years, victim of a group of classmates from her 9-year-old school.
The commissioner has emphasized that the Mossos solve almost 80% of complaints for sexual assault. That is why he addressed the victims to encourage them to trust the police, and warned the aggressors that "sooner or later, we always catch you".
