The Portuguese Victim Support Association (APAV) supported 12,398 women last year, an increase of 8.7% compared to 2022, when 11,400 were supported, according to data released today by APAV.
In an interview with Lusa as part of the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women, which marks today, Daniel Cotrim, responsible for the domestic violence and gender-based violence sector at APAV, considered that 8.7% “is a considerable increase”.
In addition to the increase in requests for support from women for the crime of domestic violence, there was an increase in requests for support for girls and women victims of sexual crimes, the number of situations of workplace harassment and crimes of threat and coercion, particularly through ‘sextortion’. ‘ (extort, blackmail someone through sexual content).
“The vast majority of victims who make their request for support to APAV continue to be women and, in the vast majority of situations, we are talking about domestic violence”, explained Daniel Cotrim, noting that domestic violence comes with another set of of simultaneous crimes, such as sexual abuse, rape, ‘sextortion’ and others such as sexual harassment, coercion and defamation.
In total, the data also reveals that among the main crimes committed in 2022 and 2023 are domestic violence (37,157), sexual crimes against children and young people (1,556), crimes of threat or coercion (1,243), crimes of offenses against integrity physical (81,018), crimes of insult and defamation (988) and sexual crimes against adults (791).
Crimes against girls and girls aged between zero and 17 were recorded 3,434 (14.4%). Crimes of violence against women over 65 years of age were recorded 2,446 (10.3%).
The majority of victims (75.3%) are of Portuguese nationality and there are 15.8% of foreign nationality and 8.9% of victims whose nationality is unknown.
Source: expresso.pt
