More than 16,000 victims of gender violence have been alerted that their attacker had mistreated other women

A total of 16,400 victims of gender violence have been notified by different police forces that their abuser has already attacked other women and presents an aggressor profile with a higher level of risk associated with both her and her sons and daughters.

Sources from the Ministry of the Interior have specified that the National Police has warned 6,948 women that the abuser is a persistent bully; the Civil Guard, at 6,767; local police, 2,605; the Foral Police of Navarra, 13; and the attached units of the National Police in the autonomous communities, to 67.

Last year, Interior began informing some victims of the background of these attackers. A task that is done on an individual basis after evaluating that this reality represents “a special risk factor” for both them and the minors in their care.

Fernando Grande-Marlaska’s department approved an instruction for this, which specified that victims will be informed when doing so is “proportionate and necessary” and, in such case, the communication will be limited to conveying that the aggressor has a history of gender violence and that carries a special risk.

The police forces in no case give additional information about the nature of the events in which the abuser has previously been involved.

This measure was adopted after verifying that the danger of these aggressors is greater and that they are responsible for a significant number of femicides. They tend to break more protection measures and in each new relationship they resort to violence sooner and with greater harm.

The level of risk to which a victim is exposed increases when the aggressor has a history of sexist violence, with the same woman or with previous partners.

Profile of the abuser: liar, manipulator and jealous

This abuser profile is manipulative, lying and very jealous, according to Interior. They tend to have many romantic relationships, sometimes at the same time, and present low levels of empathy. Interior has identified aggressors who have attacked four, five and up to 13 victims.

Although there are tens of thousands of persistent aggressors registered on VioGén, police forces only contact victims when analyzing a high level of risk.

Among the issues that are taken into account to weigh this risk and decide to report them are a police assessment of special relevance, medium, high or extreme; substance addiction; threats, exaggerated episodes of jealousy or that the victim has expressed his intention to break up the relationship.

Also that the reported violence is serious or very serious (sexual, physical or death threats) and the level of vulnerability of the victim.