The Portuguese Victim Support Association (APAV) will start providing care in Silves from tomorrow, the 17th of September, directed "at anyone who wants advice and support."
The sessions will take place from 9h00 to 17h00, as part of Silves Council’s Social Action service, located at Rua João de Deus (next to the Parish Council), in Silves.
The arrival of the APAV service sessions in this Algarve municipality happens within the framework of the National Domestic Violence Victims Support Network, which the Silves Council joined in April.
This network brings together 17 municipalities and more than 70 entities, which seek to jointly promote several values, namely “citizenship and equality, education, employment, security, justice, social reintegration, health, and social security', according to a Silves Council official.
“The intention of the creation of this network is that the entire Algarve territory can have specialized care responses to victims of violence, specifically domestic violence, and APAV is one of the managing entities of this work. Similarly, efforts will be made to promote awareness and prevention in order to reduce such situations in the Algarve region,” added the municipality.
Earlier this year Portugal held a day of mourning for victims of domestic violence after data showed attackers had murdered the highest number of women in a decade.
The number so far this year is almost double the same period in 2018, according to the Observatory of Murdered Women, a Portuguese campaign group, adding that 28 murders were recorded for the whole of 2018.
Tragically, it was reported that, from 2004 to 2018, some 503 women in Portugal had been killed through domestic violence, the highest in one year being 46 in 2008.
The European Institute for Gender Equality (EIGE) Gender Equality Index 2015 estimated that in Portugal, 24% of women have experienced violence, which is 9% lower than in the EU overall. It also estimates that the cost of intimate partner violence against women in Portugal could amount to €2.3 billion per year.
In Portugal, in 2017, there were some 23,753 cases of domestic violence reported to the GNR and PSP of which 20,186 where the victims were women.
