“Since the beginning of the course, September and October, we are seeing aggressive and violent attitudes, behaviors and speeches of some boys towards girls,” he explains. Mario Cuixartdirector of the Germina Foundation. This entity has been running a socio-educational center for children and adolescents in Badalona and Santa Coloma for 15 years, located 10 minutes from the Màgic shopping center, a place where this year at least four group sexual assaults have been reported, committed by minors, some 12 and 13 years old. One more piece of information: 25% of the adolescents cared for by the entity say they have suffered sexist violence, five times more than the previous year.
Germina educators see daily how some children and young people are returning to the most rancid attitudes of machismo, aggravated by the sexualization to very early ages. Some teens under their radar have gone so far as to commit sexual assaults. Others have been victims. And they worry that in the city there is no public service to care for these men in order to eradicate and prevent this type of conduct.
“The lack of means is desperate, the institutional abandonment is very great”, they affirm from the Fundació Germina
“Need preventive and public services that in Badalona, as in so many other cities, there are no“says the director of the center, Marina Peyri, who does appreciate the public services (SIE and SIAD) that assist women in the city. In Santa Coloma, on the other hand, there is a resource for young men. This year Germina has already referred five teenagers. However, they want to make it clear that the majority of young people they deal with are changing gender roles and their attitudes are much more tolerant and positive.
Harassment, ‘sexting’ and control
Germina, like so many socio-educational centers in Catalonia, cares for children and adolescents at risk of social exclusion. Two years ago, the team of educators began training in care and prevention of sexist violence. In 2021, six girls between the ages of 13 and 19 said they had been victims of sexist violence. They represented 5% of the total. In 2022 there were already 31: 25%. “We are paying more attention, perhaps that is why we detect more cases and, at the same time, the girls are more aware“, says Peyrí. What they have seen this year, which has surprised them, are the behaviors of some male adolescents. “They are cases of harassment, control, verbal aggression with their partners or abusive and harassing behavior at the institute”, continues the director. Some of them have been denounced.
Another behavior that is known to them, and worries them, is that of the youngest children. “We have had inquiries from children from 6 to 11 years old who are very sexualized: They talk to you about sex or make sexual positions“, says Peyrí. “Since they are very young, they have sex in their mouths constantly,” says one of the educators, who prefers not to reveal her name. The educators understand that it is not an exclusive issue of the city, that it is about behavior more widespread.
women as collectible
This educator talks about a minority group of boys who don’t interact with girls, unless it’s to flirt. “They think superiors, they believe that because they are men they will flirt with all the girls and harass them. They do not see in them the value of a person, they become a name What can you cross off your list?“, she explains, worried. It also strikes her that many boys, but also several girls, blame and question the victims of sexual assault, especially after the cases uncovered at the Màgic. “It’s a beast to have to hear phrases from their mouths like ‘she has left’ or ‘what was she doing there'”, continues the educator.
Educators, trained in gender and sexist violence, are addressing this issue with the premise that the center should be a safe space. “It is important that we can understand why do they act like this, why do they say thisIf we scold them, they will stop verbalizing it, but their attitudes will be the same,” explains Cuixart. They hold non-mixed assemblies where the boys and girls discuss these issues. They talk to them and try to go further with workshops and specialized training. But they admit that they lack means.
no public resources
Like the one in Badalona, Germina has two more centers in Santa Coloma de Gramenet. They are just a few meters away, on the edge of that invisible border that separates the two cities. “The problem there is the same, but in Santa Coloma they have a specialized service that deals with masculinity with young people“, Cuixart explains. They have already referred five kids. But this service cannot attend to the kids from Badalona. “So we don’t have anything, there is not even a public service to tackle these behaviors“, says Peyrí. They have managed to link one of them to an association in Barcelona. “But most 13-year-olds will tell you that there is no way they are going to Barcelona -continues Peyrí-. There are hardly any public services for these cases in any city.”
When the Màgic case broke out, Cuixart and Peyrí thought that, finally, the administration would take action on the matter and announce an appeal similar to the one a few streets up. But not. “We are still waiting,in the absence of means it is desperate, the institutional abandonment is very great”, says Cuixart. He explains that the Badalona town hall evades responsibility by saying that it has no powers. “And what do we do? Unlike people with resources, These families cannot afford lawyers, or psychologists, or anything at all.“, explains Cuixart, who encourages all administrations to invest more resources in sexual education in childhood.
Traditions and family settings
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In Germina they have had to manage calls from desperate mothers and fathers because their children have been denounced. “There is everything, Families getting involved and others trying to protect their children until, with the appropriate accompaniment, they understand the problem”, he says. They assure that culture and traditions must be taken into account when these issues are addressed. “There are children who They already teach them from home that at 14 they are menwho must be the breadwinner for their family… and they think that women cannot work”, says Peyrí. Others assume the macho role to “survive”. “They have enormous peer pressure”continues the director.
These educators do not have the magic wand to end this problem. But they do know that resources like yours help prevent it. “The problem is that there are adolescents who are alone all day, watching the mobile without any parental control because their parents can’t keep an eye on them, nor can they afford extracurricular schooling” explains Peyrí. This center, and many others that exist in Badalona and the rest of Catalonia, have a waiting list. “And each More and more families are in trouble, with economic difficulties… Investment in childhood has to be a priority,” insists Peyrí.