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33% of young people say it's OK to control partner

Jessica Jones
Jessica Jones - [email protected]
33% of young people say it's OK to control partner

The vast majority of young Spaniards believe domestic violence is off limits, yet still have some unusual attitudes towards acceptable relationship behaviour, a new survey shows.

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A third of young Spaniards believe it is "acceptable or inevitable" that they will control their partners — behaviour which includes dictating when their partners carry out daily activities, preventing their partners from seeing family and friends and saying what their partners can and cannot do.

Thirty-three percent of young people also think it is fair to dictate whether or not their partner can go out to work or study, according to the study carried out for the Spanish government research body CIS on behalf of the health ministry. 

However, 96 percent of women and 92 percent of men surveyed said they thought that domestic violence is "completely unacceptable". 

The data comes from a new study on the social perception of domestic violence in adolescence in Spain, released on Tuesday by the Spanish minister for social services and equality, Susana Camarero, the government’s delegate on domestic violence, Blanca Hernández and the sociologist, Verónica de Miguel.

The study is based on a survey of 2,500 people between the ages of 15 and 29-years-old. 

The results from the current study of young Spaniards were compared to a study from last year, in which the general population were asked about their attitudes towards domestic violence. On comparing the two studies, researchers found that young Spaniards were more likely than older people to think it was acceptable to control their partners, or thought that controlling would be 'inevitable'. 

Speaking at the unveiling of the new study, secretary of state for social services and equality, Susana Camarero, said: "We are particularly worried about young people’s perceptions of domestic violence because we see that their emotional and social relationships contain discriminatory and unacceptable behaviour, emerging signs of violence that could foreshadow other more serious forms of abuse". 

Twenty-eight percent of young Spaniards surveyed said they had experienced abusive control at the hands of their partners according to the study . 

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