Yesterday Tuesday began the talks given by the Head of the Coordination Unit Against Violence Against Women of the Government Delegation, Laura Segura, of the Master Plan for Coexistence and Improvement of Security in Educational Centers and their Environments that are being developed by the Provincial Directorate of the Ministry of Education.
The Master Plan covers different contents, one of its objectives being the prevention of behaviours of discrimination based on sex or sexual discrimination and the prevention of gender violence.
These training courses are aimed at students of 4th ESO, Vocational Training and Training Cycles and will be held between February, March, April and May in all the centres of the city, holding workshops in about 40 groups.
Last Tuesday they started in the Juan Antonio Fernández and during this week the IES Miguel Fernández has also given this training.
“In these workshops, the prevention of gender violence, aimed at these ages, is working, being fundamental is that the students are able to perceive the uniqueness of this violence and that they understand that the origin is in machismo and inequality,” explained Segura.
In this sense, he has pointed out that the objective is none other than to explain that although gender violence is at the top, there are other violence that are normalized. “It is about being able to recognize the first signs of violence and in this way prevent future violent behaviors and, in turn, detect those that may already be occurring,” he said.
“The data indicate that there is an increase in gender violence at younger ages, especially manifested in violence of control, and it is therefore essential to teach non-violence,” he said.
In this regard, he pointed out the importance of young women recognizing the first signs of control: clothing, friendships, mobile, isolation, etc. ; that they are able to break with relationships that deprive them of freedom or do not make them feel good.
Abuse and control
According to the 2019 Macrosurvey on Violence against Women, 6.2% of adolescents aged 16 and 17 have suffered physical violence from partners or ex-partners, 6.5% sexual violence, 16.7% emotional violence and 24.9% psychological or control violence.
And the results of the study ‘The situation of violence against women in adolescence in Spain’, carried out 2020, and which carried out a sample of 13,267 adolescents from 14 to 20 years, reflect that the situations of gender violence in the context of the couple that a greater percentage of adolescent girls acknowledge having lived, once or more often, are those of emotional abuse (“insulting or ridiculing”, by 17.3%), general abusive control (“decide for me to the smallest detail”, by 17.1%) and control through the mobile (by 14.9%).
In addition, 11.1% acknowledge that they have “felt pressured for sexual situations in which they did not want to participate”, 9.6% that have made them “feel afraid”, 8.7% that they have told them that “it was worthless” and 8% that the boy who mistreated them “presumed such behaviors”.
Regarding sexual violence, the data from the study show that 14.1% of adolescent girls acknowledge that they have felt pressured for sexual activities in which they did not want to participate.
Online sexual harassment of teenagers has increased significantly in the last decade. The situations that suffer most are those related to showing sexual photographs (48%) or asking for them (43.9%), and 23.4% claim to have received requests for cyber-sex online.
Segura pointed out that although Gender Violence in adolescents decreases, especially within the couple, it persists, “and it is necessary to place the emphasis especially on Sexual Violence and, specifically, on online sexual harassment.”
“Boys and girls generally show rejection of gender-based violence and recognize that there are violent relationships in their environment, but do not recognize other more subtle forms of violence,” she said. In the same way that the boys, who exercise it, sometimes are not aware that they are exercising it, he has apostilled.
As Laura Segura said, “the students in these workshops are very participative and show a lot of interest, creating a space for transformation and awareness that is so important in these ages; and at the same time it is intended that, with the work that is done in these talks, the students act as an engine of change in their environments.”
“It is intended to work on the eradication of inequality and make visible what is happening in our society and continue to raise awareness of the importance of perceiving this reality as one of the great problems to face and eradicate at the present time,” he concluded.