In the past five years, the number of victims of intimate partner violence has risen by 3.4 percent.

Women are mostly affected, while the perpetrators are mostly men.

In 2021, 80.1 percent of victims were female and 78.8 percent of perpetrators were male.

Heike Schmoll

Political correspondent in Berlin, responsible for “Bildungswelten”.

  • Follow I follow

Federal Interior Minister Nancy Faeser (SPD) has therefore encouraged those affected to report the crimes.

The number of unreported cases is still very large and the density of reports is unfortunately low, the minister complained on Thursday in Berlin at the presentation of the statistics of the Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA) on violence in partnership.

According to statistics, a total of 113 women and 14 men were killed by their partner or former partner in 2021.

Bodily harm is the most common, accounting for almost 60 percent of the reported cases.

Every fourth registered case relates to threats, stalking and coercion.

The violence comes from the current partner in about 60 percent of the cases, in the other cases from a former partner.

Well every third suspect was between 30 and 40 years old.

About one in four suspected men was under the influence of alcohol, among women about one in five.

Two out of three domestic violence suspects were German nationals.

Clearly identify gender-based violence

"Violence can affect any woman", in all social classes and at any age, said the head of the help line "Violence against Women", Petra Söchting, in Berlin.

The offer saw an increase in inquiries of around five percent during the two corona lockdowns.

Faeser warned against trivializing: "When men kill women because they are women, then it is appropriate and also necessary to speak of femicide." In Germany, statistically, a woman is killed by her partner or former partner almost every third day, globally every eleven minutes a girl or woman is killed by a partner or family member.

Federal Family Minister Lisa Paus (Greens) announced that she would strengthen the network of women's shelters and advice centers and create a uniform legal basis "in order to be able to provide reliable financial security for the support facilities".

BKA President Holger Münch promised to further shed light on the dark field by raising experiences of violence that were not reported to the police in a survey conducted jointly with the Federal Ministry of the Interior and the Federal Ministry for Family Affairs.

Münch cited personal experiences of violence, patriarchal attitudes, traditional role models and stress as causes of violence.

Meanwhile, Federal Minister of Justice Marco Buschmann (FDP) has announced that gender-specific violence will also be named as such and that "gender-specific" motives will be included in the sentencing provision, Section 46 of the Criminal Code.

The corresponding draft law is available and he hopes that the cabinet will soon adopt it.