In 2020, some 5,000 children and adolescents from the Balearic Islands took part in a sexual abuse prevention workshop financed by the IRPF solidarity box, which is managed by Social Affairs.
The entity also carried out 77 therapies for adults who suffered sexual abuse during childhood or adolescence.
One out of every five minors suffers some type of sexual abuse before the age of 18 and, in 85 percent of cases, the aggressor is a member of the minor’s immediate family. With these data in hand, in 2020 the Rana Foundation organised more than 250 workshops on the prevention of child and adolescent sexual abuse for children and adolescents in the Balearic Islands.
The social educator of the Rana Foundation, Patricia Raduan, explains that these workshops are carried out with the aim of prevention and to raise awareness of a subject that is taboo. For Raduán, “despite the fact that it is known that minors are victims of abuse, it is difficult to work with in educational centres, and we, through these workshops, can give teachers a hand in tackling this problem”.
The prevention programme is financed with 0.7% of the Social Income Tax managed by the Department of Social Affairs and Sports and in addition to directly helping children and adolescents, it also benefits professionals who work with minors, with an estimated 2,500 beneficiaries per year.
Primary school pupils
With primary school pupils, i.e. children from 6 to 12 years of age, the work is based on the story Estela, Grita Muy fuerte (Estela, Scream Very Loudly). Patricia Raduán explains that “it is a story by Bel Olid, which allows us to show a situation through a character with whom they can identify and from there show how these abuses occur, how this process of approaching, the abuse of trust and power is. It is important to teach them to say no. Let them know that it is something they can talk about, that they can ask for help and where they can go if it happens to them”.
During 2020 Rana explained this story to 3,467 primary school children, grouped in 192 workshops.
Infant and secondary school pupils
Although the most numerous workshops are those aimed at primary school pupils, Rana also runs workshops for infant and secondary school children.
As for secondary school children, in 2020, 33 workshops were held, in which 608 pupils participated. With them, Radúan explains, “we work on the basis of cases and videos and analyse them according to their interests. What interests them most.
As for the youngest children, we work through an activity called Exploring with Nil. This activity was carried out 40 times last year and reached 774 children between the ages of 4 and 5. Raduan explains that “we saw that the earlier we started prevention, the better, and the idea is that a child, from the time he or she starts at the infant stage until he or she finishes compulsory schooling, can benefit from all of Rana’s programmes”.
Workshops for professionals and therapy for adults
In addition to these workshops, the Rana Foundation’s programme, financed by the IRPF Social solidarity box, also provides training for professionals, talks, direct care, group therapies and dissemination and awareness-raising. In fact, in the psychological treatment spaces for adult victims of childhood abuse in 2020, 77 patients were attended to.