Femicides in Europe
News reports from around the continent suggested that the Covid-19 pandemic was not only a time of public health emergency and isolation, but also of rising cases of violence against women and femicides. After 2018, no official data about these phenomena was published at a European level however.
That’s why 16 members of EDJNet, coordinated by the Mediterranean Institute for Investigative Reporting, decided to shed light on the numbers, trends, and facts concerning violence against women in Europe, so as to build an up-to-date map of the issue. We did it by requesting data to the national authorities and by assembling it, trying to fill as many gaps as possible.
Main findings:
- There is a staggering lack of up-to-date data and of data coming with similar characteristics, thus comparable between countries. Data recently published by state actors comes with significant gaps.
- The total number of femicides from 2010 to 2021 in the 20 countries providing data is estimated at 3,232. The figure is a sign of serious underreporting by police authorities however, as Eurostat data recorded 6,593 intentional homicides of women in 2011-21 (not all of them are femicides, but most probably are).
- Greece had the highest increase in femicides during the pandemic, with an increase of 187.5% from 8 victims in 2020 to 23 in 2021. In the last few years, femicides have been rising dramatically in Sweden as well. Sexual, economic and online abuses have also increased in several countries.
- The negligence of law enforcement authorities is also an issue: in Greece, for instance, 2020 data shows that only 71% of the 4,436 perpetrators of domestic violence against women were prosecuted. Of these, 21% were convicted, but only 14% of them actually went to prison.
- The adoption of an EU directive to combat violence against women and domestic violence has been pending since March 2022. The directive proposes to make data collection mandatory across the EU, as the extent of violence is not sufficiently recorded and communicated.
Stories
Over the past ten years, more than 300 femicides have occurred in Serbia. Many of those who kill women also commit suicide. The remaining families of the murdered persons look for justice in court, but CINS’s investigation reveals that they often do not find it there.
May 23, 2023
Is there anything more that authorities can do to protect women?
March 27, 2023
The story of Eleni, who went through a nightmare at the hands of her self-appointed "partner", highlights the institutional gap in support for victims in Greece. What happens to women in Greece when they seek a way out of the abusive environment in which they are trapped?
March 27, 2023
EUrologus presents a brief summary of the legislative measures taken by the European Union in recent years to combat the issue of femicide.
March 24, 2023
Compared to the rest of Europe, the number of homicides in Italy is low and the number of male victims has decreased sharply over the years. But the same cannot be said of women. Meanwhile, at the European level, the heterogeneity of homicide classifications makes counting femicides difficult.
March 15, 2023
An exclusive data analysis by 19 media outlets reveals another dark side to the pandemic: a marked increase in murders of women, and violence against women, at the hands of domestic partners. The investigation also highlights serious flaws in the way institutions monitor this type of abuse.
March 14, 2023
Between 800 and 1,600 a year, but there is no standard definition or comparable data between countries. A directive proposed a year ago makes it compulsory to collect this information across the European Union.
March 14, 2023
Femicide is the murder of a woman because of their gender. We have reconstructed the incidence of femicide in Italy and Europe, notwithstanding the many difficulties in measuring the phenomenon. In Italy in 2022, women were the victims of 91 percent of homicides committed by family members, partners or former partners.
March 8, 2023
This unprecedented cross-border investigation, conducted with the participation of 18 newsrooms across Europe, attempts to shed light on femicides and rising violence against women at the time of the pandemic, as well as on the staggering shortage of up-to-date data on these phenomena.
February 28, 2023
The data unit
Janine Louloudi (MIIR, coordinator) is a journalist at the Mediterranean Institute for Investigative Reporting, based in Athens. She is also a producer of documentary and news programmes.
EDJNet members which took part in this investigation:
Investigace, Atlatszo, and Noteworthy also contributed to the investigation.
