There was a time, not so long ago, in Spain, when silence about the abuse that many women suffered in their homes was our daily bread. That silence had deep roots. Social norms of the time assumed that women should satisfy their husbands’ sexual needs and that men had the right to decide when to have affairs. That order accepted physical and psychological violence as a way to resolve family conflicts, strengthening men’s intimate power over women.
Much progress has been made since then. The progressive convergence of roles between men and women in social, political and economic life constitutes one of the most significant achievements of recent decades. However, gender-based violence remains a persistent and universal threat to women’s well-being. According to INE data based on the central register of the Ministry of Justice, in 2024 there were 34,684 victims of gender violence.
The most recent European survey on gender violence (2022) also offers alarming data: among women resident in Spain between 16 and 74 years old who have had a partner at some point, it is estimated that 28.7% (approximately 4,806,054 women) have suffered some type of violence from their partner during their lifetime. The incidence is even higher among young women: 38.4% (909,941 women between 18 and 29 years old). Finally, in 2025, 38 feminicides were recorded. Between 2003 and 2025 the total amounts to 1,333 victims, according to data from the Ministry of Equal Opportunities.
However, public concern regarding this issue remains minimal. In the CIS Barometer last June, just 1% of respondents listed gender-based violence as one of the country’s top three problems, a figure that has never risen above 8% in the last decade.
Although some media and political leaders currently tend to relativize this problem, it is worth remembering that gender-based violence continues to be the most widespread and frequent form of violence throughout the world. To understand its scope, the book by Anke Hoeffler and James D. Fearon Worse than war: the global costs of violence (“Worse than War: The Global Costs of Violence”) shows that assaults by intimate partners, the vast majority of whom are men against women, occur more frequently than homicides, deaths or serious injuries resulting from wars and terrorist attacks. Gender-based violence has devastating consequences not only for women, but for the well-being and development of societies as a whole.
Understanding the causes of gender violence is particularly complex because what victims consider violence is conditioned by cultural factors, which makes it difficult to compare results between different societies. Furthermore, we know that victims face significant disincentives to report abuse, so the statistics may in some cases reflect greater trust in the criminal justice system rather than an actual increase in violence. However, over the past 30 years, the research community has made advances in measurement methods and has incorporated specific intimate partner violence modules into household surveys in a growing number of countries. A good example is the extensive report by the World Health Organization.
Social science research has identified numerous risk factors associated with perpetrators of violence, including exposure to violence in childhood, lack of social support, poverty, or substance use. However, less attention has been paid to the complex interaction between laws, norms and culture, leaving fundamental elements such as political institutions or social mobilizations in the background.
Recent studies show that legislation establishing criminal sanctions for abusive behavior contributes to transforming social norms related to gender-based violence, which encourages critical attitudes towards these practices. Likewise, awareness campaigns in the media and programs implemented in schools and workplaces have produced positive results on a global scale. A good example is SASA! program, an intervention initiated in Uganda and adapted in more than 50 countries, which has demonstrated its ability to change attitudes and behaviors towards violence against women.
The research also highlighted the role of the feminist movement as a decisive driving force in promoting legal and political changes regarding gender violence. These movements not only helped reform laws and public policies, but also spread information about new norms of treatment of women and led to increased reporting rates.
Cristina Rivera Garza’s moving autobiographical novel Liliana’s invincible summer He brings us closer to the story of his sister Liliana, killed in a femicide in Mexico in the 90s, when she was just 20 years old, at the hands of her ex-partner. It was a crime that was hushed up at the time and which left the perpetrator, who is still missing, unpunished. The author tells how, 30 years later, she found the strength to write this book, a strength inspired by feminist mobilizations, such as the green tide in Argentina, the protests in Spain or the marches of young women in Mexico against feminicides, whose momentum convinced her that it is worth continuing to fight to put an end to this atrocious violence.
However, there is still much to be done. It is essential to better understand the difficulties women encounter in interacting with the institutions they turn to to report, especially when that journey passes through the police and criminal justice. Victims of violence feel alone and afraid, and reporting abuse to the police requires not only enormous courage, but also having adequate resources and the strength necessary to face the labyrinths and bureaucratic rigidities that the protocols impose.
A report of violence can have devastating effects at home, and victims face uncertainty about the institutional response and reaction of their community. Even when a woman wants to put an end to the violence she suffers, the fear of precariousness is completely understandable, such as that the family income will drastically decrease if the aggressor is punished. We still know very little about the conditions that make women more likely to report and we need to invest more time and resources in research to better understand how victims of violence deal with this decision.
Fighting gender violence is a moral imperative. Living under violence, or under the constant threat of it, within the home seriously damages the health and well-being of millions of women around the world and has devastating consequences for their children, as well as for the political, social and economic systems in which they live. Be wary of those who minimize this problem: although it may seem that we have made many steps forward, the truth is that there is still a long way to go so that equality can live, with serenity and without fear, in the privacy of every home.
