Country Profile Spain

General Country Information

Summary

There is one national women’s helpline in Spain, which is available free of charge, 24/7, and offers multilingual support. Additionally, there are other regional helplines in the country. There are 307 women-only shelters in Spain, offering 3,810 beds. There are approximately 475 women’s centres in Spain, and rape crisis centres are available across the country, although their current distribution does not yet meet the planned objective of ensuring at least one centre in each province. Primary prevention is included in the State Pact against Gender Violence and in the State Strategy to Combat Gender Violence, along with a dedicated budget. The state collects data on women’s specialist services and on primary prevention activities, which are available to the public.

Women’s Specialist Services

There is one national women’s helpline in Spain called Service of attention to all forms of violence against women (Servicio de atención a todas las formas de violencia contra las mujeres, tel.: +34 016). The helpline is run by the Ministry of Equality, is free of charge and available 24/7, meeting the standards of the Istanbul Convention. It offers multilingual support in Spanish, Catalan, Basque, Galician, English, French, German, Portuguese, Mandarin Chinese, Russian, Arabic, Romanian, Bulgarian, Tamazight and 39 other languages through a tele-translation service. It provides help for all forms of violence against women and is funded by the state. It also provides a WhatsApp number for chats (tel.: +34 600000016) and is accessible to women with hearing disabilities through different channels, such as the application TOBMOVIL (tel.: +34 900116016), SVisual (www.svisual.org) and Telesor (www.telesor.es). Between January and June 2024, the helpline received 58,928 calls. The most common forms of violence reported by callers were domestic violence, sexualised violence and economic violence.

Additionally, there are other helplines supporting women survivors of violence against women in Spain. Among them is the helpline of the ANAR Foundation (Fundación ANAR, tel.: +34 900202010), which provides psychological, social, and legal assistance for children of women in intimate partner violent relationships or children in abusive relationships themselves, and a helpline for survivors of trafficking for the purpose of sexual exploitation (tel.: +34 900105090). Other regional helplines, which operate 24/7, include Andalusia’s Teléfono de atención a la mujer 24 Horas (tel.: +34 900200999), Aragon’s helpline (tel.: +34 900504405), Specialised Care and Support Service for Victims of Gender-Based Violence, run by Institut Balear de la Donna (tel.: +34 900178989, WhatsApp number: +34 639837476), Canary Islands’ Servicio de Atención a Mujeres Víctimas de Violencia de Género en el Centro Coordinador de Emergencias y Seguridad (CECOES) which is run by the Canary Institute for Equality (tel.: +34 112), Catalonia’s regional helpline (tel.: +34 900900120) which is free and confidential, Castille – La Mancha’s emergency helpline (tel.: +34 900100114), the helpline of the community of Madrid (tel.: +34 012), and the one of the community of Valencia (tel.: +34 900 58 08 88), which operates 24/7 and is run by the Centro Mujer around the clock, the women’s helplines of Castille and León (tel.: +34 012), Navarra (tel.: +34 112), Galicia (tel.: +34 900400273), which operates 24/7, La Rioja’s information helpline for women (tel.: +34 900711010), the Basque Country’s Servicio de Atención Telefónica a las Mujeres Víctimas de la Violencia contra las Mujeres (SATEVI) (tel.: +34 900840111), and the emergency telephone assistance service for abused women in Murcia (tel. +34 112).

According to national statistics from 2022, there are 307 women-only shelters in Spain with 3,810 beds available, and most of them offer 24/7 access. These statistics only include public shelters and do not necessarily reflect all shelter services available in the country. There are three different kinds of shelters: emergency shelters/crisis centres (Centros de Emergencia), which have 24/7 access, temporary shelters/houses (Casas de Acogida) and supervised/transitional housing, which allows for a longer period of stay. Normally, in public shelters, women are not expected to pay for their accommodation. The average length of stay in shelters varies across regions and according to the kind of shelter. For instance, in 2024, 72.5% of users in the Valencian Community were able to stay with their children up to a full year. The types of in-house services most often provided by women-only shelters are casework, counselling/psychological support, referrals/collaboration with other services and legal advice.

While all shelters can accommodate older women, most of the shelters can also be accessed by and are accessible to refugee women, women with physical and sensory disabilities, women with substance abuse issues, transgender women and women with children with disabilities. Some shelters are equipped to support homeless women, women with cognitive disabilities and women with older sons. There are also shelters specialised in supporting specific groups of survivors, including migrant women and women without a residence permit, survivors of trafficking and sexual exploitation, women with disabilities, LGBTQI+ people, and migrant women survivors of domestic violence.

Public women-only shelters are funded by public authorities, while other women’s shelters additionally rely on donations and international funding. Women-only shelters are run by various stakeholders, including women’s NGOs with a gender-specific/feminist approach, as well as other NGOs, public authorities, as well as private companies. There are shelters in all autonomous communities, but in rural and mountain areas, some users are forced to travel 80-100 km to find a place. If women-only shelters had to decline referrals, the main reasons were the lack of space/capacity to support the survivor and to accommodate survivors with children, and shelters not being adequately equipped for the needs of the women/children. In some cases, women are not accommodated because they do not meet the criteria, or because the shelter is not prepared for severe addictions or severe behavioural disorders. The most common forms of violence reported by survivors to the women-only shelters in 2024 were domestic violence, physical violence and psychological violence. According to national statistics, the number of survivors supported by public women-only shelters in 2022 is approximately 7,874 women and 5,384 children, although some regional data is missing.
Additionally, other shelters in Spain can provide accommodation to survivors of gender-based violence, but they are not specialised women-only shelters.

According to national statistics, there are 475 women’s centres in Spain, which specifically support women survivors of violence.¹ Women’s centres provide counselling and psychological support, referrals and collaboration with other services, legal advice, social welfare support/advocacy, housing and employment advice, needs assessment, specialist advocacy services, community awareness and education for prevention. Women’s centres also provide support to survivors of sexualised violence.

All centres can provide support to older women; at the same time, most of them are also accessible to and can be accessed by women with uncertain residence permits/undocumented women, refugee women, and women with physical and sensory disabilities. Some centres are also equipped to support women with cognitive disabilities and transgender women, while no centre can support unaccompanied girls under the age of 16. Additionally, in Spain, there are centres specialised in supporting specific groups of survivors.

Women’s centres in Spain are mostly run by women’s NGOs, followed by other NGOs, public authorities and, in some cases, private companies. They are funded through public funding and are present in all regions. The available public statistics report that in 2024, women’s centres supported 70,597 women.

By June 2025, 54 rape crisis centres operating 24/7 were expected to be established across the country. While many of these centres are confirmed to be functional, the status of others cannot be verified. According to NGO sources, at least 23 centres are currently operational. Rape crisis centres provide a range of services, including psychosocial and legal needs assessments, emergency psychotherapy, accompaniment to police stations, hospitals and courts, as well as awareness-raising activities in educational and community settings. Additionally, there are two specialised helplines belonging to two 24-hour rape crisis centres in Spain.
Most public hospitals and medical centres follow specific protocols for responding to cases of sexualised violence and can provide forensic and medical care for survivors. However, they generally lack dedicated facilities or specialised personnel for these procedures. Funding for the establishment of the 54 centres was provided by the European Union, while the responsibility for ongoing maintenance lies with public authorities.

In terms of geographical distribution, the model foresees one rape crisis centre in each Spanish province. Larger cities such as Madrid, Barcelona, Valencia, and Seville host several 24-hour centres, while in rural areas service availability remains limited. Currently, rape crisis centres provide support to women and girls aged 16 and above.

Public authorities collect data on primary prevention, although in a fragmented way, and they are included in the Monitoring System of the State Pact against Gender Violence and in the State Strategy to Combat Gender Violence 2022–2025, which has a system of indicators to measure progress, including on prevention. The State Pact against Gender Violence (2017, updated in 2024–2025) includes Axis 4 on prevention, with 90 specific measures for primary prevention. The State Strategy 2022–2025 addresses these measures and establishes lines of action for primary prevention, which go beyond awareness-raising. In the State Strategy, the definition of primary prevention from the Istanbul Convention is adopted. In Spain, there is a specific budget allocated to the implementation of primary prevention activities, while autonomous communities and local councils often co-finance prevention projects (school programmes, community workshops) with their own resources, which guarantees continuity and regional coverage. Primary prevention activities conducted in the country include feminist self-defence trainings, empowerment activities for girls and women, primary prevention activities specifically targeted to men and boys, school-based primary prevention programmes, training for primary prevention practitioners, bystander intervention training, self-care activities and awareness-raising campaigns or programmes. According to the State Pact Monitoring Report, the implementation of prevention activities is tracked; however, there is no detailed evaluation of either the activities themselves or their impact. In addition, specialised NGOs carry out evaluations of school and community projects with public co-funding.

1. According to national statistics, the 2022 data indicate a substantial decrease compared to the figures reported in 2020 and cited in the previous WAVE Country Report. While 920 women’s centres were recorded in 2020, 475 were documented in 2022. No explanation for this decline has been provided in the available sources. ↩︎