With the decline of the "Covid-19" epidemic

Femicides are on the rise in Europe... Violent men are 'losing control'

• With home confinement imposed across Europe, monitoring of domestic violence has become more difficult.

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The gradual return to normal life in Europe was accompanied by an escalation of murders of women again, after a deceptive decline in light of restrictions, as lifting the stone for men of violent temper was a "loss of control".

Among the women victims of violence (Shaheniz) who was burned alive by her husband in France, and five women were killed during three weeks in the spring in Sweden, and others were killed in Spain.

Faces at the forefront of the newspapers and covered by the newsletters continuously.

In the rare European countries that provide official statistics for the year 2021, whether official or issued by associations, the numbers unequivocally indicate this trend.

Among these countries is Spain, where a woman has been killed every three days by her husband or ex-husband since the state of health emergency was lifted in May, compared to the average woman per week during the same period in 2020.

In Belgium, there were 12 murders of women by the end of April, compared to 24 for the whole of 2020. In France, 56 women have been murdered to date, according to the association «Killing of women by their partners or ex-partners» compared to 46 in the same period in 2020.

"When women regain their freedom, the aggressors feel they are losing control and react more violently, and this is evidenced by the wave of murders of women in the past months," Victoria Rosell, head of the Spanish government's team against male violence, told AFP.

And she continued, "When we opened the door of restrictions, we also opened the door to another epidemic, the male epidemic that was hiding behind it."

Spain was the first European country to pass a law in 2004 that makes the gender of the victim an aggravating circumstance in the event of an assault, determined to “finally” eradicate this “scourge”, according to what Socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez announced after the recent increase in the number of such crimes.

"help"

With home confinement imposed across Europe, monitoring of domestic violence has become even more difficult.

The victims, who were obliged to stay in their homes, were forced to coexist with the executioner, and they had no choice but to seek help, except in a very covert manner.

Returning to the example of Spain, distress requests during the quarantine that extended between mid-March and mid-June 2020 increased by 58% compared to the same period in 2019, with a sharp increase in requests for online inquiries reaching +458% for these “silent” requests as you describe them. Ministry of Equality.

"This reflects the situation of women who could not even make a phone call from their homes," Victoria Rosell commented.

The same trend was recorded in Italy and Germany, with a sharp increase in the number of calls to emergency numbers assigned to domestic violence in April and May 2020.

In the UK, Refuge, which helps victims of domestic and family violence between spring 2020 and February 2021, received twice as many calls as it normally does.

Pizza and a purple mask

Throughout the period of confinement, women victims of violence remained imprisoned in their homes with their husbands or partners, and under their constant close monitoring.

How can they in this case ask for help?

In Italy, the police assigned them an emergency number that they could call and say, "I'd like to order a Margherita pizza," a sign that they are exposed to violence or are afraid of violence, when the police send in a patrol.

In Spain, women could enter a pharmacy, which is one of the rare shops that remained open during the stone, and order a “purple mask.”

Angelis Carmona, president of the Spanish Observatory against Domestic Violence and Gender-related Violence, noted that contacts increased, but that complaints and murders declined under the restrictions.

The number of murders of women decreased last year in France, Italy and Spain, with 90, 67 and 45 women murdered, respectively, at the hands of their partners or ex-partners.

In Belgium, the number remained stable at 24 women.

This phenomenon is not surprising, according to Angelis Jaime de Pablo, president of the Thimens Women's Association, as home confinement constituted the "ideal scenario for the practice of control-based violence", and she considers that the current increase in murders was "expected".

The man often moves to the act of killing when announcing a separation, divorce, or the beginning of a new romantic relationship, and in fact the stone has postponed these motivating circumstances.

“After the health crisis is over, many victims realize they have the tools to end the relationship,” said Carmen Ruiz-Repoyo, a sociologist who specializes in gender-based violence.

And herein lies a great risk of murder.”

• “Shaheniz” was burned alive by her husband in France, and five women were killed within three weeks in Sweden.

• In Spain, a woman is killed every three days by her husband or ex-husband.

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