Racism, Sexism, Rape: How Romani Women and Girls Are At Higher Risk of Sexual Assault in Spain

By. Paloma Dean

DOI. 10.57912/33411685

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In 2022, a doctor in Spain discovered a twelve year old Romani girl was pregnant. An investigation found that a twenty year old Romani man had been repeatedly raping her. In court, prosecutors asked for eleven years of jail time for repeated rape of a minor. Instead, the man was acquitted. The judge justified the verdict by saying "In Romani culture, this is normal." In this case, the Spanish judicial system was unable to function properly because the judge’s personal biases impacted his work. This is one of many cases where the justice system has failed Romani women and girls who are especially vulnerable to sexual abuse.

In Spain, a Romani woman is twice as likely to be sexually assaulted as any other demographic. Romani women and girls are often victims of domestic violence, child marriages, trafficking, and sexual violence. They are also the least likely to report sexual assault. This is because of the Spanish socio-political culture towards Romani women and girls and Romani people as a whole. Romani women are victims of “dual-discrimination:” discrimination because they are both female and Romani. This intersectionality creates a unique racial and gender bias towards Romani women and girls, putting them in an especially vulnerable position. Under the Spanish Constitution, all citizens—including Romani women and girls—have equal rights including the rights to be protected from discrimination of all kinds and the right to the protection of a Justice Court if any of their rights are infringed. Despite this right to protection under the law, Spanish beliefs about Romani people significantly limit the legal rights that Spanish law is supposed to provide these women and girls. 

One of the first steps towards mitigating this bias is ensuring that Spanish courts judging cases involving Romani women are kept fair and clear of any racial bias. When judges perpetuate systematic racism in the courtroom, Romani women’s civil rights are not fully protected, and in Spain there is no organisation to ensure judicial fairness. The lack of oversight into the actions and biases present in Spanish court rooms means that cases of discrimination and bias against Romani women and girls in a courtroom can be overlooked. While the final step of the process towards properly defending the civil rights of Romani women and girls is the elimination of Spanish social biases against them, first steps should include introducing oversight into the Spanish courts.

When the courts fail to provide justice to Romani women, it signals to potential attackers that they also will not get prosecuted if they assault a Romani woman. The dual-discrimination present in Spanish courts sustains to the preexisting biases in Spain about Romani women and girls, putting them at higher risk of sexual assault. When Spain prosecutes cases of rape against Romani women and girls, the sentences handed out by the court—if any are handed out at all—are often negligently small and justified by these same racist and misogynistic stereotypes. These precedents also create a culture where Romani women do not feel safe going to the government to prosecute and assault, which prevents them from accessing the help they need and deserve from the Spanish government. 

Romani girls face further discrimination in the form of “adultification,” a racist belief where certain demographics of children are treated as more mature than they are. This term usually refers to racism against Black children in the United States, but it is common in Spanish perceptions of Romani. By adultifying Romani girls, Spanish culture can treat children as adults and not grant them the protections they are afforded as children. 

Romani women and adultified Romani girls have historically been depicted by the Spanish state and the Catholic church as inherently promiscuous. They are forced into a hypersexualised form of femininity to be used as a counter example to traditional Spanish ideals. Hypersexualisation increases the victim-blaming in Spanish culture and decreases the victim's perceived suffering at the hands of their attacker. Romani women reporting sexual assaults are viewed as liars, and police often believe these women ‘wanted’ their assault or were ‘asking for it.’ These perceptions mean that Romani women and girls reporting assaults have a significantly harder time getting help. As such, despite the high amount of sexual violence perpetrated against Romani women and girls, they are less likely to report their abuse. When they do, their cases are often treated without the respect that sexual violence deserves at all stages of the judicial process. 

In the case of the twelve year old Romani girl, the Spanish court not only failed to protect her by making racist assumptions, it also justified this crime by calling it “consensual.” In Spain, sex between a person under sixteen and an adult cannot be consensual. The victim was twelve. When the perpetrator claimed he did not know his victim’s age, the court believed him by adultifying the girl and saying she could have been as old as fifteen. 

This claim legitimised the adultification present in Spanish culture by using it as justification in a court decision. After deciding to judge this case as if an older child was assaulted, the judge then claimed that, if she actually were fifteen, the girl—who would still not be able to consent—would be “close in age and maturity” to her attacker. This claim has no legal basis. The legal system should never treat a twelve year old victim as if they were a grown adult. This girl had a right to protection under Spanish law. By buying into racist stereotypes against Romani men and adultifying the victim, the Spanish court denied this girl protection from her rapist. Instead, the court excused his actions. 

When a Spanish court looks at a twelve year old Romani girl and decides that she is enough of an adult to consent to sex, they set a precedent that strips all other Romani girls of the protections they are granted under Spanish law and places them at higher risk of sexual assault than girls of other ethnicities in Spain. 

The Spanish courts also fail to protect grown Romani women from sexual assault. Studies on domestic violence against Romani in Spain suggest that Romani women face much higher levels of domestic abuse, which is often a precursor to sexual violence. If Romani women are more likely to be abused, this correlation indicates they are more likely to experience sexual assault. Despite this, when Romani women try to press rape charges against their partners, Spanish judges have repeatedly denied their claims by falling back on stereotypes that hypersexualise Romani women. In one case, a Spanish judge claimed a Romani woman made up rape accusations against her husband. He justified this belief by saying, “Well, she did have eight children with him, right? It’s hard to believe she would be forced to have sex?” 

Comments like these indicate that long-standing Spanish stereotypes hypersexualizing Romani women have seeped into Spanish courts. These beliefs significantly impede Romani women and girls civil rights and create a false understanding that they do not mind rape and that men who attack them should not be held responsible.

The Spanish government and court system have a responsibility to protect the rights of everyone living within the country, including Romani women and girls. When the Spanish courts allow baseless and racist stereotypes about Romani women and the whole Romani community to influence legal decisions, Spain fails to protect their rights. On at least two occasions, the Spanish court has used “culture” to justify acquitting repeated child rapists, and the number of Romani women who are not believed when they press assault charges is very high compared to other Spanish ethnic groups. The dual-discrimination Spanish courts exhibit towards Romani women and girls must be addressed.

The only way to entirely stop racial biases from affecting judicial decisions is for Spanish society as a whole to change its mindset about Romani people. This, however, is a tall order and will likely take decades of education, awareness, and institutional reforms. In the meantime, court bias must be solved. Many countries and provinces around the world employ judicial oversight bodies to mitigate bias in local and federal courts. An oversight committee would be able to review cases when judges are not properly using Spanish law to protect Romani women and girls are instead letting their biases cloud their judgment. If a judge’s conduct was found to be unethical, the committee could determine that a judge needs to be admonished, censured, removed or forced to retire. 

While a judicial oversight committee is a reactive measure, if a judge knows their rulings will be reviewed and the committee sets a strong precedent of pursuing action against unethical judges, judges will be forced to consider and counteract their own biases before making official judgments. A judicial review board will be a strong first step to protecting the rights of Romani women and girls in the court system, but it is just a first step. The pervasive biases in Spanish culture negatively affects every Romani woman and girl in all parts of Spanish society. No matter what policy changes are enacted, until anti-Romani biases are corrected culturally, Romani women and girls in Spain will always be more vulnerable to sexual assault and less able to receive the help they deserve.