The Mossos d'Esquadra have located in Lloret de Mar a six-year-old minor who was registered as stolen by the French judicial authorities and who had been missing for months with her mother and maternal grandmother. The investigation began a year ago. The search was activated following the issuance of two European Arrest and Surrender Warrants (EASO) by the French authorities against the mother and grandmother, for an alleged crime of child abduction reported by the girl's father.

Sports betting, cards, and roulette are the most common forms of gambling among young Catalans, especially boys. In fact, it is increasingly common for secondary school students, that is, teenagers between 14 and 18 years old, to gamble. Last year, for example, 17% of students participated in in-person gambling, although the percentage among boys rises to 24.5% due to the marked gender gap observed in this practice. This is one of the key findings of the latest survey on drug use in secondary education (ESTUDES), conducted by the Catalan Health Department to understand the consumption habits and addictive behaviors of young Catalans.

In 2025, ten people disappeared every day. This statistic may be surprising, but it is repeated almost every year. This Monday, the Mossos d'Esquadra (Catalan police) announced that 3,682 cases of missing persons were registered in Catalonia last year. "This figure highlights the importance of having a comprehensive response and providing support to families," the police force stated, emphasizing that 98% of cases are resolved successfully. The Mossos released this data to coincide with the International Day of Missing Persons. The figures are similar to those of previous years, although the increase in disappearances of young people, especially minors, and the elderly has been striking in the last 12 months. Only 2% of cases remain unsolved. The vast majority, according to the police, are voluntary disappearances. More than half are resolved within three days of the report being filed, and two out of three missing persons are located before the end of the first week. Although the problem affects thousands of families every year, disappearances only represent 0.6% of all reports received by the Mossos d'Esquadra (Catalan police).

A child remains hospitalized with serious injuries after falling from a hotel in Hospitalet de Llobregat on Sunday. The child, between five and six years old, fell approximately eight meters. He sustained multiple injuries and was initially unconscious, according to sources consulted by ARA, although no internal bleeding was detected. The incident occurred early Sunday morning, around 4:00 AM, at the Hyatt Regency Barcelona Tower Hotel. His family was celebrating a wedding in the same building, and according to initial reports, the child went to play with another child in a designated area of ​​the hotel. At that moment, the child apparently lifted a grate covering a hole and fell. The Emergency Medical Services activated five ambulances, which treated and transported the child in critical condition to Sant Joan de Déu Hospital.

The Barcelona Prosecutor's Office has launched a specialized vulnerability unit, the first of its kind in Spain. Five prosecutors will handle cases where the victims are minors or vulnerable for other reasons, interpreting this concept broadly: they will address cases affecting children, the elderly, or people with disabilities, but also those involving "situational vulnerability," such as power imbalances or victims of serious crimes like sexual assault. The focus will be on preventing the revictimization of those affected.

The story of Jeffrey Epstein is not just that of a pedophile who ran a prostitution ring catering to wealthy men worldwide. It is also a story of money, politics, and above all, power. Epstein used sex to buy favors and influence, but also to obtain information and increase his fortune. The American magnate, who committed suicide in 2019 in a New York prison, had a network of accomplices who procured young models and minors for him. But he was also the mastermind behind the scheme. What did the wealthy men who came to him want? He provided it and opened the doors of the island to them. Little Saint James: a paradise in the Caribbean where he invited some of the most influential people on the planet and where some of these men assaulted and raped dozens of minors.

It was only a matter of time before the Spanish government announced restrictions on social media. This was foreshadowed by the interest in examples like Australia and, soon, France. The first spark of the debate on age restrictions ignited in the summer of 2024, with the controversy surrounding the consumption of pornographic content at very young ages. At that time, the government announced the Beta Digital Wallet, a digital passport that includes age verification—commonly known as pallaporte–. The restriction is also mentioned in the draft bill for the protection of minors in digital environments, which is currently being processed.

The High Court of Justice of Catalonia (TSJC) has upheld the conviction of Xavier Padial, the confessed pedophile of Barberà del VallèsSentenced to 57 years in prison for repeatedly torturing and sexually abusing two of his cousins, both minors, and forcing one of them into prostitution. "We do not believe that the compensation awarded makes up for what the victims have suffered at the hands of the defendant, and much less that it is disproportionate," states the ruling, which ARA has accessed, and which confirms one of the highest compensations for sexual violence ever awarded by the State. The court awarded €80,000 to the other girl—who suffered abuse from the age of 6 or 7 and prostituted herself under his influence—and €80,000 to the third girl, who also suffered sexual abuse. The court thus rejected the appeal filed by Padial's defense, who also produced child pornography with material obtained from sexual encounters with Laura. "There is no disproportionality whatsoever. The facts are so serious, and their consequences so grave, that we can only agree with the court's decision," reads the document that upholds the sentence handed down in June 2025 by Section 21 of the Provincial Court of Barcelona. During the trial, held in October 2024, the prosecution held the defendant responsible for the "torture" that Laura suffered for 11 years. The harrowing account of the young woman, who testified when she was 23, and who had received threats and coercion, led the prosecution to conclude that Padial had completely "brainwashed" his cousin, turning her into "a toy in the defendant's hands." The victim recounted to the court how, before meeting with clients, her cousin, who was twice her age, would "prepare" and sexually abuse her: "I had to have sex with him to perform well with the clients."

The Mossos d'Esquadra (Catalan police) have arrested 11 young people for forming a criminal group that robbed victims they met through dating apps. Ten of those arrested are minors, and the eleventh is 18 years old. In fact, according to police sources, most of those involved were about to turn 18. They are accused of nine assaults, three of which were never reported. They employed a modus operandi Similar, but the violence they used escalated.

An attractive sum of money, a gift, or a favor in return only Sending an erotic photo or video to a stranger. 2.5% of young Spaniards say they received this type of offer at some point while they were minors. This means one in 40 young people. And 15% say they know of cases where minors have participated in such activities. Social media is increasingly filled with these lures and easy advertisements, websites and platforms that whitewash sexual exploitation and child pornography, prompting an alert from the NGO Save the Children.

National Police officers in Girona have arrested the parents of a minor for "deliberately" abandoning him at a police station. According to a statement released by the Spanish police force on Friday, the parents' objective was to have their child recognized as an unaccompanied foreign minor and obtain the benefits associated with this legal status. The investigation began during the child's registration process. National Police officers noticed that the passport listed an address in Girona. This discrepancy led the police to verify the child's status and locate his parents. This incident in Girona on Friday is not an isolated case. Just a month ago, 30 parents... They ended up arrested in Tarragona to pass their children off as unaccompanied minors. 124 files of minors in protection centers in the city of Tarragona were detected that could be linked to this type of fraud. They left the minors near police stations or social services offices, thus allowing them to benefit from the public protection system.

The report of 14 missing children over seven months triggered an investigation that has uncovered an international child trafficking network operating from the Canary Islands to France. Between November 2014 and May of this year, 13 children disappeared from a center in Arrecife (Lanzarote) and another from a children's center in San Bartolomé de Tirajana (Gran Canaria). Spanish police have arrested eleven people, and four are already in pretrial detention for crimes including organized crime, document forgery, offenses against family rights and duties, obstruction of justice, and child pornography. The police force does not rule out further developments in the case. In fact, the investigation remains open to locate and protect the missing children and to establish the necessary international police cooperation channels to clarify the facts. So far, investigators have confirmed that the criminal group used routes and contacts in Morocco, Ivory Coast, and Spain to fraudulently transport children to France. The 14 disappearances that triggered the alarm led to an operation to locate the minors and clarify how they had disappeared from the centers where they were receiving protection.

Bakary and Lassana were minors, and the Catalan government (Generalitat) caused them to end up on the streets by claiming they were adults. Now, the courts have ruled in favor of the two Gambian boys. The age tests carried out by the Public Prosecutor's Office to determine their age, which led the former Directorate General for Child and Adolescent Care (DGAIA) to expel them from children's centers, were invalid. Lassana and Bakary's are just two cases. But there are many more scattered throughout the region. In the city of Girona, there are already two other court rulings, and in La Garrotxa, for example, there have been about ten in recent months.

A groundbreaking sanction in Spain. The Spanish Data Protection Agency (AEPD) has fined the distributor of several AI-generated images of nude girls €2,000. The incident dates back to 2023, when dozens of images of several teenage girls from Almendralejo, in the province of Badajoz, were published. These images were created using AI programs that replaced the nude bodies with the real faces of some of the girls from the town.

A 15-year-old girl has reported being sexually assaulted by three schoolmates in Gironella, in the Berguedà region. According to the victim's account, the incident occurred this Saturday afternoon in the municipality. Sources consulted by ARA confirm that following the complaint, the Mossos d'Esquadra (Catalan police) launched an investigation. Two of the three minors allegedly involved have already made statements to the police and have been brought before the Juvenile Prosecutor's Office. The third is 12 years old and therefore not liable to prosecution.

The Mossos d'Esquadra have arrested five people, two of them minors, for their alleged relationship with The murder of a minor of only sixteen years of age on September 8 on the border between Barcelona and Hospitalet de Llobregat, in front of the Santa Eulalia metro station, according to ARA. After a month and a half of investigation, the Catalan police have been able to link those arrested to the attack with knives on a group of three minors, including the deceased.

Christian LF, the leader of the xenophobic supremacist movementSport Them NowThe UE prisoner, imprisoned since July for instigating racist riots in the Murcia town of Torre Pacheco, had previously worked at the Can Llupià juvenile justice center in Barcelona. He worked there from November 2, 2022, to March 30, 2023, according to sources from the Department of Justice, who claim that he "never had access to the juvenile database." However, the Sicap Fepol union has demanded that the department conduct an internal investigation to confirm whether the man accessed this data.

This June, the Archdiocese of Barcelona began paying the first compensation payments to victims of sexual abuse in the Church. Last year, following the cases reported over the past few years and the reports on abuse in the Church made by the Spanish Episcopal Conference (CEE) and the Ombudsman, the comprehensive reparation plan for minor victims of sexual abuse, known as PRIVA, was implemented. Since its creation, the CEE's Comprehensive Reparation Advisory Commission has reviewed each case of individuals who reported having suffered abuse within the Catholic Church in Spain and are seeking compensation.

It is known ashappy slapping(happy slap, in English) and consists of recording physical assaults between minors and sharing them on social media. A man residing in Girona had made this violent practice a hobby: he was the administrator of a group on an instant messaging app with more than 164,000 followers and had the luxury of choosing which users could join. Without his authorization, the group could not be accessed and, therefore, the content considered cyberbullying could not be consumed.

The Murcia Juvenile Court has sentenced a 14-year-old minor to comply with twelve behavioral guidelines for the stabbing death of his father. The events date back to June 2024, when the minor, who is at the minimum age to face legal proceedings, intervened during an argument between his mother and father. The boy has admitted that, in order to defend his mother, he attacked his father with a knife. The sentence reflects these events and the minor's confession following an agreement reached with the Prosecutor's Office.