Malaga registers 25 sex crimes in three months: an average of two cases a week

Malaga averages two cases of sex offences a week after 25 crimes were recorded in the first three months of the year in the province.

The alarming data comes after the Observatorio Contra la Violencia Doméstica y de Género, an institution formed in Spain in 2002 to bring awareness to and monitor domestic abuse, released its latest report with the updated crimes for the first quarter of 2023.

The organisation, a part of the General Council of the Judiciary (CGPJ) of Spain, established that one new complaint of this type of crime is being processed through the courts every three and a half days.

The crimes range from harassment to rape, or sexual assault of minors under 16 years of age, as well as acts of exhibitionism and offences related to prostitution, among others.

The report noted, however, that in the first three months of the year, the courts in Malaga received three fewer complaints for these crimes than in the same period in 2022.

But the province has experienced an increase in terms of the total number of crimes related to gender violence, with 165 more cases recorded during this time than in the first quarter of last year.

The courts of the province have received up to 1,487 cases of abuse and injury, of which 923 have involved the victim being the wife or the partner of the suspect.

According to the data, the number of crimes related to breaches of court orders in the province has multiplied. Malaga courts have received three times as many breaches of sentences as in the same period last year, when 50 were registered, and these now total 150.

Breaches of precautionary protection measures have also increased, totalling 328 breaches, 71 more than in the first quarter of 2022.

2,167 victims

From January to March of this year, according to the report, 2,167 cases of women victims of gender violence have been registered in Malaga. Of these, 1,338 were Spanish, while 829 were of foreign origin.

The report pointed out that the vast majority of complaints were filed after police intervention.

According to judicial statistics, during this period 221 men have been tried for gender-based violence, of whom 178 have been convicted. The Malaga juvenile courts have tried three minors between the ages of 16 and 17 for their alleged involvement in this type of crime.

The data also showed that there have been 127 cases (65 Spanish women and 62 of foreign origin) in which the victims have refused to testify against the accused perpetrators of gender violence.