WHO IS THE VICTIM

Anyone can be a victim of sexual violence regardless of their of age, gender, sexual orientation, socioeconomic level, the places he/she goes to, the people he/she meets and any other characteristic.

There are however some groups of people that may be more vulnerable to sexual violence:

• women and girls are more at risk of being victims of sexual violence;
• among women, young women are a particularly vulnerable group;
• children, mainly the youngest, are also a particularly vulnerable age group;
• people who have been victims of sexual violence in the past;
• women victims of domestic violence, when the sexual violence is only another form of control, humiliation and power used against them;
• higher education students and, among these, female students;
• groups with a higher risk of social exclusion, such as foreign citizens, undocumented citizens and/or ethnic minorities;
• people with any physical and/or mental disability that requires them to depend on caregivers;
• people with risky jobs, such as sex workers;
• people under the care, supervision or monitoring of a specific organisation or who are deprived of their freedom and are placed in sheltered accommodation, clinics/rehabilitation centres, prisons and residential care homes, for example.

IT IS IMPORTANT TO NOT FORGET THAT:

Regardless of any personal characteristic or behaviour, the victim can never be blamed for what happened. The responsibility for the sexual violence lies always with the offenders.