This project, co-financed by the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, started in 2016, allowing the monitoring of victims, their families and friends - the main focus of this intervention - but also the establishment of partnerships with the Judiciary Police, responsible for investigating these crimes, with the Institute of Legal Medicine, with the legal expertise in charge, and with the National Institute of Medical Emergency (INEM).

CARE Project / Network technicians identify the needs of victims, listening and helping children and teenagers and their families to deal with the consequences that the crime has had on their lives, supporting the most direct consequences, but also in confronting issues and legal, social and practical needs that may arise.

In addition to support for victims, Care - a specialized support network for children and young people who are victims of sexual violence - also has a component of training and qualification of technicians and the structuring of better procedures to monitor these cases in conjunction with all entities involved, with the actions reaching over 16,000 participants.

In the four years of the project, 1,167 children and young people and 154 relatives and friends were supported, with 15,204 consultations taking place and according to APAV, there are more and more requests for support directed to the CARE network, having doubled since the beginning of the project: 195 new cases in 2016 and 417 new cases in 2019.

In most cases reported to APAV, the victims were girls and, at the time of the request for support, were between 14 and 17 years old.

Victimization occurs mainly in an interfamily context (52.2 percent of requests for help received), being mainly practiced in these cases by fathers / mothers or stepfathers / stepmothers and in 58 percent of cases the crimes occurred continuously.

According to APAV data, 78.7 percent of reported situations were reported to police and court authorities.

APAV promotes a seminar on the role of the CARE project, within the framework of the European Day for the Victim of Crime, marked on 22 February.

This event was created by Victim Support Europe, an organization that brings together 58 victim support institutions from 30 European countries, to remember the rights of those who are victims of crime.