THE most comprehensive survey of violence during childhood to be conducted in Spain has revealed some disturbing findings.
The study was organised by Sigma Dos for the Ministry of Youth and Children.
It revealed that just over 48% of those quizzed suffered psychological violence during childhood and adolescence.
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That included controlling behaviour through to intimidation and contempt.
Physical violence affected 40.5% of respondents,
Almost one in three -28.9%- said they were victims of sexual violence.
9,037 people aged between 18 and 30 years(2,643 men and 6,394 women) filled in replies to a wide-ranging questionnaire about their childhood experiences with all kinds of violence.
Transferring that to a national figure, with around six and a half million people in 18 to 30 age-range, it would mean around two million of them encountered sexual violence in their past.
Miguel de la Fuente, coordinator of the Sigma Dos study said: “The extrapolation can be done with absolute reliability.”
Youth and Children Minister, Sira Rego, said: “The figures are terrible and show that violence is a fact and a structural behaviour.”
“It is not something that can remain private but has to become a government matter because we have an obligation to protect our children and adolescents,” the minister added.
Rego says the survey will be conducted every two years to make comparisons and to see if policies are working to combat the problem.
Child psychologist, Mercedes Bermejo, said violence impacts on the development of children.
She told the El Pais newspaper: “It leaves marks that go far beyond the moment in which they occur and, most of the time, they are invisible marks that can lead to some type of sequelae or post-traumatic stress.”
“It is an experience that alters the emotional, psychological, physiological and even neurological development of children and young people who suffer from it.”
Bermejo continued: “Violence conditions their way of being in the world, their way of relating, of bonding, of understanding authority figures.”
“Childhood should be a safe place for them to grow up in a healthy way and develop their self-esteem,” she concluded.
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