► 70 percent of cases result in jail time, complaints rise by 11.7 percent ►
More men are serving jail time in Spain in 2017 as a result in a rise in convictions for the crime of gender violence, while the number of complaints over domestic abuse by partners or former partners filed by women across the country continues to rise.
According to latest-available figures released this week by the Spanish government’s Domestic and Gender Violence Monitoring Agency (Observatorio contra la Violencia Doméstica y de Género), during the third-quarter of this year 70 percent of the 10,365 criminal proceedings nationwide over domestic abuse and gender violence resulted in jail time for the male perpetrators, representing a slight rise in convictions over the same period in 2016.
At the same time, women across Spain filed a total of 42,751 complaints for gender violence and domestic abuse during the third quarter of 2017, representing an average of 17.2 complaints filed per 10,000 inhabitants nationwide. The latest figures mark an 11.7 percent year-on-year increase for the same three-month period in 2016.
In releasing the figures, Observatorio president Ángeles Carmona lauded the increase in convictions and jail time as sending a clear message that in Spain “there is no impunity for machista violence”. But, she said, the number of complaints filed by women, explained in part by a nationwide media campaign encouraging women to report abuse to the national “016” telephone hotline, remains unacceptably high.
Of Spain’s 17 autonomous regions and communities, leading the list of those exceeding the national average of 17.2 complaints per 10,000 inhabitants were the Balearic Islands (25.7), followed by Murcia (23.1), the Valencian Communty (22.5) and the Canary Islands (21.5). The lowest ratios were found in Galicia (10.7), Asturias and Castilla-León (each with 11).
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