17% of women were victims of male violence in 2016, says study

Gender abuse continues to be a problem, with some 17.6% of women saying they were the victims of some form of male violence in 2016. This is the conclusion of the second Survey on Male Violence in Catalonia, which was presented on Monday.

The study also shows that 20.9% of the women who were victims of violence consider what happened to them to be a crime and of these, 26.1% reported the incident, an 8.4% increase in the number of reported cases compared to the 2010 survey.

For the researchers who carried out the study, the rise in the number of reported cases of male violence against women reflects an improvement in the identification of violent incidents and is also due to a greater social awareness of gender abuse.

Commissioned by the Catalan government, the Barcelona City Council and 'la Caixa' Banking Foundation, the survey also includes data relating to lifelong cases of gender abuse, the emotional impact of the violence, and the victimization of children.