The criminal protection of minors and/or teenagers against sexual assaults: considerations around the protected legal good in the current socio-historical context

Abstract

Sexual assaults constitute a series of crimes that clearly in recent years have caused great stupor in society, which has been extrapolated to the political class with great tension, to the legislator, and therefore to legal operators. Among sexual assaults, which can no longer only be committed physically, but also through telematic means of various kinds, there are those that are committed against minors and/or adolescents as a highly vulnerable group. The present work aims to carry out a transversal etiological approach to the reality of our time in order to understand what is happening currently to commit crimes that attack the sexuality of minors and/or adolescents in different ways, among which We find the one that is perpetrated by people very close to the victims, deeply rooted religious institutions and even with more recent media impact, in a group way, in «Manada». Starting from a well-documented recent casuistry, some national and international studies of the most authoritative doctrine on the phenomenology of sexual assaults are analyzed, which violate legal rights that have evolved over time. Likewise, an exegesis is carried out regarding the legal rights that are injured when sexual assaults against minors and/or adolescents occur in a context in which the immediacy, lack of calm and the turbulent times in which we live make it necessary that we contribute a series of reflections from various branches of knowledge.