The regional government is praising the work of the Service for the Care of Children and Adolescents Victims of Sexual Violence (SAANNA), highlighting how it has established itself as a benchmark in the rehabilitation intervention for minors who have suffered this type of violence.
In the first half of 2024, SAANNA treated a total of 470 cases in the Valencian Community, compared to 422 people treated in the same period in 2023, which represents an increase of 10% of cases in the three provinces compared to the previous year.
Efforts to detect situations of sexual violence, as well as increased awareness and psychological, social, and legal intervention, have been essential to achieving a greater number of cases attended to.
The aim is to improve the psychological state of victims and reduce the negative effects of child sexual violence, as well as to provide intervention tools to their living environment and prevent secondary victimisation.
Children and adolescents who are victims of sexual violence and who enter the SAANNA program receive personalized attention from psychology, social work and law professionals. The objective is to work on each case to achieve rehabilitation and recovery of the victim that will have an impact on improving their future personal development.
The Network of Offices of the Generalitat for the Assistance to Victims of Crime (OAVD) and the Offices for Complaints and Assistance to Victims of Gender-Based Violence in Valencia (OD) have implemented a plan for the current summer period of 2024 of reinforcement that ensures that the assistance to the victims of the crime is direct and immediate.
Part of the plan includes the so-called Purple Zones at events where victims of this sort of violence can seek assistance.
This reinforcement plan responds to the accumulation of tasks and workload that occurs, generally, during the vacation periods of staff assigned to the OAVD and OD. For this, the Ministry of Justice and Interior will incorporate three lawyers, from August to December, in Valencia. Two of the positions will be provincially mobile, to provide service throughout the province and, in Orihuela, to cover vacant positions.
Despite us already being halfway through August, the awarding of two more positions of lawyer with provincial mobility will “soon be carried out”, one in Alicante and another in Castellón, which will allow the strengthening of the OAVD of the province that so require.
The aim of the Ministry of Justice and Interior is to make the operation of the offices more effective, with the ultimate aim of strengthening the rights recognised to victims and providing them with more protection.
Although the timing is inline with the summer period, it is also at a point where the pact between the PP and VOX has broken up, which may ease the strengthening of support given that VOX famously do not believe gender violence exists.
