The Andalusian Regional Government has offered psychological and legal care to 500 victims of sexual violence throughout the first half of 2022, through the different resources of the Andalusian Women’s Institute aimed at women of legal age who have suffered abuse and/or sexual aggression, one of which includes 24-hour on-site care at the place where the events occurred. Thus, the legal advice, legal assistance and psychological care service for women victims of sexual violence has attended 446 women up to June, while the 24-hour immediate care service has intervened in 56 cases, making a total of 502 women attended in these first six months of the year. To this must be added the response to more than 4,000 queries, both in person and by telephone and email.
The councillor for Social Inclusion, Youth, Families and Equality, Loles López, has valued “the importance of offering women victims of abuse and sexual aggression specialised resources to favour their emotional recovery” and, in this way, “facilitate decision-making and overcoming the after-effects through early and effective psychological intervention”. “We not only intervene with the assaulted women, but we also give emotional support to the families in order to strengthen their recovery,” she said. At the same time, she insisted on “the need to work on the prevention of this type of situation, especially in the young population, and on the training of the technical staff who attend to these women in order to improve assistance”.
Intervention at the scene
In addition, the Andalusian Women’s Institute has a 24-hour immediate psychological care service for women victims of sexual violence, which has attended to 56 women up to June. This programme, a pioneer in Spain, aims to provide information and professional and specialised assistance on the spot to women who have suffered sexual violence, regardless of the municipality, from a gender, psychological and victimological approach. In this way, a rapid, agile and coordinated response is ensured to attend to and protect women who have suffered some kind of sexual aggression both online and in person.
