The Balearic Islands Provincial Court will try a man this Thursday for one of the cases of repeated abuse. He is accused of turning the life of his niece, a minor with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), into a living hell of sexual violence that lasted for almost four years. According to the Public Prosecutor's account, the abuse began in 2012, initially sporadically, when the girl stayed overnight at her uncle's house. But the situation worsened from 2015 onwards, when the victim began living under the same roof as her abuser. The Prosecutor's Office estimates that the man subjected the minor to touching and penetration at least seven times a month. This raises the minimum number of assaults to 336, a figure that forms the basis for the request for a 12-year prison sentence for the continuous crime of sexual assault against a minor. The impact of living in this environment of violence has left deep psychological scars on the victim, aggravated by her pre-existing health condition. Since March 2019, the man has been prohibited from approaching within 500 meters of the young woman, a precautionary measure that has remained in place until the trial. In addition to the prison sentence, the Public Prosecutor's Office is demanding €15,000 in compensation for the victim as civil liability. The trial, which will take place in the First Section starting at 9:30 a.m., will determine responsibility for events that remained hidden for years within the family's inner circle.

When she was little, Macarena Llull (Seville, 1987) didn't feel like she was different. "Looking back, when I was in primary school, I didn't notice anything particularly different. I had my school friends, but I didn't have them outside of school. I was always very solitary. I was very focused on my studies and always reinforced that," she explains. That feeling of strangeness, still vague, didn't raise any red flags. "In fifth grade, I had sessions with a counselor... and they told my parents they thought I was gifted. They didn't discuss what they could do, or anything. It was all much more complex," she recalls.

She works as a nursing assistant at Manacor Hospital and grew up unaware that she was autistic. "We're from Sóller, I went to school there. In my day, people didn't speak to the language," recalls Eva García (Sóller, 1974). "I was a child who went unnoticed, and they didn't realize that I was a bit of a perfectionist and restless. Sometimes I was alone in the playground, but since I had friends from Sóller, I didn't miss anything." Her studies weren't easy. "I did repeat grades, and when I went to high school, I skipped classes because I was bored or because I didn't understand the material. Then I did a vocational training course."

The number of students diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) enrolled in public and private schools in the Balearic Islands has increased by 445% in less than a decade, a situation that has forced teachers to improve learning processes and teach "at breakneck speed" to adapt to new realities. This is one of the main conclusions of the study. Educational characteristics of students with ASD, included in the Yearbook of Education of the Islands, presented this Thursday and prepared by the Educational and Social Research and Training Group (GIFES) of the UIB, with the support of the Guillem Cifre de Colonya Foundation.