ABSTRACT Sexual violence constitutes a pervasive global issue, disproportionately affecting women and girls and resulting in serious health consequences, making it essential to give a voice to survivors. This study employed the transitivity model to analyse the discourse of women survivors, focusing on how they recount and interpret their experiences, alongside quantitative data on their perceptions of severity and risk. Results from the discourse analysis showed that mental processes were most frequent (32%), reflecting a discussion of thoughts, feelings, desires and perceptions, followed by relational processes (26.8%), material processes (25%) and verbal processes (14.2%); meanwhile, behavioural and existential processes were rare (1% each). Quantitative findings indicated that participants reported a higher perceived severity of violence and greater risk to their lives retrospectively than at the time of the incidents. Trauma‐informed approaches that validate survivors’ perceptions, emotions and meaning‐making processes are, therefore, essential.
Badenes-Sastre et al. (2026) studied this question.