Spanish homeless suffer high risk of violence

47.1 percent of homeless people in Spain have suffered at least one incident of hatred and intolerance and of those 81.3 percent have suffered this kind of incident on more than one occasion according to a study published by the Hatento Observatory, which is an organization set up to investigate hate crimes.

The investigation was carried out in eight different Spanish cities: Barcelona, Bilbao, Murcia, San Sebastian, Sevilla, Madrid, Alcobendas and Mostoles.

It discovered that 87 percent of those responsible for carrying out incidents against homeless people were male and of those 57 percent were aged between 18 and 35.

It had been suspected that the majority of attacks were carried out by members of far right-wing groups, but the Observatory discovered that in fact only 7.3 percent of incidents were perpetrated by members of these groups while 28.4 percent were provoked by young men who were on a night out drinking and 10.1 percent of negative experiences were at the hands of the police.

42.9 percent of incidents against homeless people saw them receive insults or threats, while 40.8 percent of incidents involved physical aggression and in 40.7 percent those committing the aggression carried some kind of weapon, be it a stick, stone, brick or glass bottle.

Six out of ten incidents happened during the night or in the early morning with two out of three incidents seen by witnesses who did nothing to intervene.

Finally, only 15 out of the 114 people who admitted to having suffered an incident reported it to the police.

With the economic crisis the number of homeless people in Spain has risen considerably in recent years and that and estimated 8,000 people now call the streets their home. Endit