Psychological abuse and control are most common in dating.

Psychological and control violence are the behaviors most commonly reported by teens and young adults in the Union for Women’s Alternative and Response (UMAR) National Study on Dating Violence, presented Tuesday in Porto.

From a total sample of 5,916 young people, with an average age of 15, attending grades 7-12 on the mainland and islands, who answered 15 questions grouped into six categories of forms of abuse – control, psychological abuse, stalking. , violence through social networks, sexual violence, physical violence – 65.2% (3,943) indicated that they had already experienced at least one of these indicators of victimization.

At a press conference, Maria José Magalhães, Margarida Pacheco and Catia Pontedeira, responsible for the work, stated that 41.5% (1777) of young people admitted to being subjected to psychological violence: 48.5% (1070) of girls, 39.8% (660 ) boys and 70.7% (41) of those with a different gender identity.

According to the “control” indicator, 44.6% (1760) of the surveyed adolescents and young people – 46.4% (1024 girls), 41.3 (685) boys and 74.1% (43) of young people identifying themselves with other identities – said that they faced such a situation, indicating in greater numbers the prohibition to be or communicate with friends or colleagues.

Of the total number of young people who indicated that they had or are in a relationship, 23.3% said they were victims of stalking, 21.2% of violence through social networks, 14.9% of sexual violence and 12.2% – physical abuse.

With the exception of physical violence (12% of girls and 12% of boys), according to the study, the percentage of victimization rates is higher for girls than for boys.

People who identify with other identities generally reported higher percentages of victimization rates, which the authors say “leads to important reflections on the experience of violence experienced by social groups with deviant identity characteristics.”

In terms of the legality of dating violence, 67.5% of young people do not perceive at least one of the fifteen acts surveyed as dating violence.

Men have a higher level of legitimization of all forms of dating violence compared to women.

Models of behavior related to psychological violence, in particular “insult during a quarrel / anger” stand out in particular: a total of 21.7% (692) of girls and 41.3% (1075) of boys do not recognize such behavior as violent.

In the same sense, there are gender differences in the legitimization of sexual violence.

Of the total number of girls, 21.4% (680) legalize “compulsion to kiss in front of friends”, while in the group of boys this percentage rises to 40.9% (1063).

Study coordinator Maria José Magalhães is “concerned” by the prevalence of some of the forms of violence studied, as well as their recognition as indicators of forms of dating and intimate relationship violence.

The official believes there is still a “long way to go” to prevent such behavior throughout life.

To this end, he argued that “it is important to supplement this quantitative study with others qualitative” in order to better understand the dynamics of relationship violence at this age.

The results of the study also point to the importance of primary prevention of gender-based violence in the school context and its development in a “holistic, systematic and continuous” manner, so that children and young people are aware of the deconstruction of these behaviors and for the development of healthy dating and intimate interpersonal relationships.

This work was developed under the ART’THEMIS+ (Young Activists in the Prevention of Violence and Gender Equality) project using a questionnaire on dating with violence approved by the Ministry of Education.

Of the total sample of young people (5916 people), 53.8% were girls, 44% were boys, 1.4% were representatives of other identities (including non-binary people, gender-neutral, gender-fluid, third-gender and queer and etc.) and 0.6% did not answer.