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The confinements in Europe have triggered the number of attacks against women and girls. Law enforcement and offers of protection lag far behind the crisis, the EU and UN warn.
By Jasper Steinlein, tagesschau.de
There was no way out for 26-year-old Maëlys from the western French city of Angers – a strict curfew had been in place for nearly a week due to rising rates of corona infection in the region when her The 30-year-old couple called the police on October 29. He had strangled the girl with his bare hands, as the investigators announced, in front of his four and seven-year-old sons. The older man is said to have ran to the window and yelled at the grandmother who lived across the street, “Daddy killed Mom,” a neighbor later reported to the local press.
Maëlys is 77 of at least 87 women killed by partners or ex-partners in France that activists have counted since the beginning of the year. When it became known that a femicide had been registered in the country every other day in 2019, the authorities prioritized the training of police and judicial officials during the first wave of corona, installed more places in emergency shelters and left the employees of pharmacies and supermarkets as well. Training so that victims of domestic violence can communicate with them without high risk. But many measures, such as an emergency phone call, initially failed to close because offices were unoccupied or forces to fight the crown were withdrawn, a situation that also applies to almost all other EU countries.
Global rise in misogyny in the pandemic
“Women are often at the highest risk from the people they know,” explains Carlien Schelle, director of the European Institute for Gender Equality (EIGE). The governments of the EU member states have recognized this and introduced measures to protect women from violence by their partners and families. “But the lack of existing funding for accommodation and hotlines has resulted in incomplete protection.”
Isolated at home, many women and girls could no longer protect themselves, and found it difficult to get help from authorities or non-governmental organizations, the United Nations (UN) also found: “Reports of violence against women have increased by everyone that the far-reaching requirements forced to stay in the same place permanently with their torturers, often with tragic consequences, “says a report from the UN equality unit” UN Women “.
A report published by the CEPOL European Police Academy on the effects of the Corona crisis on the prosecution of domestic violence found that almost half of surveyed police authorities in 21 EU countries found it more difficult to come into contact with victims, perpetrators and witnesses. . As a result, the investigation took longer and the perpetrators remained unpunished longer.
Even in EU countries that did not register any increase in the number of cases, hospital stays of the victims or risk factors during the lockdown, the values return to the pre-crisis level after the crown restrictions were relaxed : CEPOL experts conclude that there must be a large number of unreported incidents that were not reported during the shutdown. EU member states Belgium, Hungary, Ireland, Malta and the Netherlands did not even provide data for the report.
Neither aid organizations nor law enforcement officials look prepared
Both EIGE and the UN praise the fact that many European countries have responded to outbreaks of violence against women and girls with information campaigns and action plans: in Latvia, Estonia, Slovakia and France, for example, victims of the domestic violence now have a legal right to safe accommodation. The Czech Republic announced that it will train postal and parcel carriers to recognize the signs of domestic violence and offer support to those affected. In the Netherlands, the prosecution is instructed to prioritize the investigation of cases of sexual violence. In the wake of the crisis, Greece even presented its first comprehensive action plan against misogynistic violence at the national level.
But although many EU states have been in a second lockdown for a long time, implementing the plans remains a challenge: hotlines and specially configured emergency calling apps can only help if those affected dare to use them in presence of the perpetrators, and he has not yet taken the media out of them.
Aid organizations, such as emergency shelter operators, in turn, were often overwhelmed in the first wave of the crisis, EIGE reports: on the one hand, with increasing need, on the other hand, with the increased stress caused by women’s psychological distress, and with the constant risk of corona infection.
According to the CEPOL report, the police authorities were also unable to cope with the situation. 56 percent of all respondents indicated the need to receive more training on the issue of how to contact and maintain contact with victims in domestic isolation, correctly assess the threat situation for women when home visits are not an option, and how to behave when dealing with people infected with corona. .
The capacity of most states for such training courses is likely to be low, while security officers are sometimes used to conduct corona tests, enforce exit restrictions, or accompany demonstrations. A reason for the UN to remember the lack of participation of women in decision-making positions. The equality unit demands: “Putting women and girls at the center of preparations, struggle and aftercare could finally bring about the real change that women’s rights activists have long campaigned for “.
