Friends, acquaintances on social media, and partners: more than half of the women raped in Barcelona knew their attacker.

BarcelonaFamily and friends, partners and ex-partners, coworkers, and men they've met through social media. The majority of women who have been victims of rape knew their attacker and suffered the assault in what is supposed to be a safe environment for them, according to data from Hospital Clínic, the referral center for sexual violence cases in Barcelona and the metropolitan area. In the first ten months of the year, the Barcelona center treated 665 sexual assaults, and more than half (365) were rapes. This means that at least one rape victim arrives at the Emergency Room every day. So far this year—pending data for November and December—Clínic has treated 50 more rapes than in all of 2024, and according to the service's professionals, the violence with which these assaults are perpetrated has also increased, given that women are arriving with more injuries, such as bruises and bites. "Most of these women have been raped by someone they thought they could trust. It's important that they know the perpetrator could be someone in their own community," warned Maria Àngels Martínez, gynecologist and president of the Gender Violence and Health Commission at Hospital Clínic, which has released the annual report from the Women's Center. The Clínic report is a good quantitative indicator, but it also provides insight into how this type of violence is perpetrated and how victims react. Each year a new increase in demand is observed Cases of sexual violence have increased in emergency services—this year there have been 6.5% more cases than last year—and in the last five years, 3,254 victims have been treated. Women are the most affected (562), although the number of men treated for sexual violence has also increased (85). In 99% of cases, the perpetrators are identified as men, and the data confirms that most rapes are far from the image of an opportunistic, unknown assailant acting on the street. The majority of perpetrators are men known to the victim who act in an environment supposedly safe for her, such as her home. In fact, 57% of cases occur in homes. Among these known men, the report also highlights the fact that 12% of the perpetrators had established some kind of relationship with the victims through social media—this is the first year this information has been broken down. In that same group, it was concluded that 8.2% of rapists were the victim's partner or ex-partner, and that 5.7% had or have had a work relationship with her. By age group, the youngest victim was 16 and the oldest 89, and four out of ten people treated were 25 or younger. The report indicates that 28% of women under 25 were raped by acquaintances in a home, a percentage that rises to 31.5% among women between 25 and 45, and to 38% among those over 45. "It's appalling, and it's a public health problem," says the director general of the Hospital Clínic, Josep Maria Campistol, who asserts that the situation is "dramatic" and that the intensity of these attacks "is getting worse."

More aggression and more than one aggressor

Hospital data reveals that physical aggression has also increased this year in cases of sexual violence. In 38.8% of cases, women presented with physical injuries such as blows, bites, scratches, bruises, and fractures. In total, the Barcelona center has treated 76 moderate or severe injuries, compared to 67 last year. Given this situation, Ester Valls, Social Work Coordinator and also president of the Clínic commission, believes that more resources and more professionals are needed to combat sexual assault in Catalonia. "We have to get our act together and we must do more prevention because we are not reaching where we need to be," she warned. Regarding group assaults, 9.4% of assaults against women were committed by more than one assailant, and there are 20 cases in which there were three or more assailants. There has also been a notable increase in assaults by men against other men, rising from 60.5% to 69.4% in one year. Regarding arrivals at the Clínic emergency department, 40% of the women came on their own initiative, 34% were referred by other services, such as the Medical Emergency System (SEM) or primary care centers (CAP), and 19% of the assault victims were accompanied by the police.