The new court for violence against children and adolescents in Barcelona has received around 300 cases in its first quarter of operation. This court has been functioning since January 1st in the Catalan capital and among the crimes it has most handled are those related to child abuse and sexual assault on minors, according to judicial sources told ARA. In fact, it is responsible for investigating the case of the baby who remains hospitalized for alleged mistreatment and sexual assault by its parents. mistreatment and sexual assault allegedly by their parents.

These days we have learned of two news items that occurred in Catalonia, both very difficult to digest: the abuse of a child, allegedly caused by its parents, and the euthanasia that the woman who had requested it finally received and that her father had been preventing in the courts for almost two years. These are not just any two news items. And, precisely because they attract our attention, we cannot dwell on the morbid and must take them very seriously. And that means avoiding summary judgments without foundation and obvious statements of no interest.

According to theMonthly Statistical Report of the DGAIAAccording to a report from the Catalan Agency for Prevention and Protection of Children and Adolescents (DGPPIA) in February 2025, 1.4% of Catalan children and adolescents have experienced or are still experiencing situations of abuse, neglect, or family abandonment. The percentage is likely higher, as this figure is based only on reported cases. Globally, according to UNICEF According to the WHO, 6 out of 10 children under the age of 5 experience some form of physical, emotional, or sexual violence. In total, it is estimated that nearly 1 billion children may have been exposed to this violence in the past year—figures that are absolutely chilling.

A man has been sentenced to ten and a half years in prison for abusing his one-month-old son in Montblanc. The man caused injuries that required surgery and one ICU admission in 2019The child suffers after-effects that, now that he is five years old and under the guardianship of the Generalitat (Catalan government), have resulted in a 70% disability. The ruling by the Tarragona Court ultimately acquitted the mother, who was also held in pretrial detention under investigation for the abuse.

The Mossos d'Esquadra (Catalan police) have arrested an imam from the Marca del Ham neighborhood of Figueres for mistreatment of minors who attended the mosque he led. According to police sources, he used a rigid cane or an open hand to beat children who attended the religious center to pray and learn Arabic. After the incidents occurred several times, it was the families of the neighborhood's Muslim community who alerted the police and removed him from his duties.

A victim's testimony is key to investigating any crime and identifying the suspect, so much so that it can be sufficient evidence for a conviction. However, what happens when the victim is a child and, due to their age, cannot offer a testimony as clear and detailed as an adult? Especially in crimes that are often committed in secret, such as sexual assaults, it is more difficult to determine the perpetrator. In this regard, several Catalan lawyers report that cases of this type often end up closed before the judicial investigation begins, not due to a lack of evidence but because the perpetrator cannot be identified.

The Spanish Parliament has given the green light this Thursday to the organic law for the protection of children and adolescents, with only PNV and Vox voting against it. The law aims to have the same impact in the field of child abuse as the law against gender violence had in 2004. In this sense, the main novelty of the law is that the statute of limitations for sexual crimes against children will not start to run until the victim turns 35, while now it was triggered at the age of 18. This meant that an abuse penalised with ten years in prison would prescribe five years after the victim turned 18. Often, however, it took victims many more years to become aware of the abuse or to muster enough courage to report the aggressor, and this meant that in many cases the justice system found that the alleged crimes were already time-barred.