This dossier collects a collection of official annual data for Catalonia in order to make the phenomenon visible and analyze it. The research and analysis of the data allow a more detailed approach to reality, a key point in order to ensure knowledge of it and promote more appropriate actions to eradicate this type of violence.  This edition collects data from the registers of different departments of the Generalitat on gender-based violence, data on feminicide and data on services linked to the ICD.

Sexist Violence is the violence that women suffer for the mere fact of being so and is the most serious expression of patriarchal culture, which in some cases ends the lives of women and in others does not allow the full development of women’s rights, equal opportunities and freedoms.

Gender-based violence takes place in a framework of unequal relationships and takes the form of a diversity of abuses suffered by women, which can take different forms - physical, psychological, sexual and economic - and which take place in specific areas, in the framework of affective and sexual relationships, in the areas of the couple, family, work and socio-community.

The pandemic and the exceptional circumstances we have had to live through have highlighted the paramount importance of care and given the opportunity to put life at the center, but also the situation of confinement has further aggravated the vulnerability of women in situations of gender-based violence and their children, and has exposed them to a higher risk of suffering it.

Overall, during the time of the COVID-19 pandemic, an increase in gender-based violence is being observed and much of the feminicide is being committed by people close to and known to women in the most intimate spaces.