It's About Time: Recognize Femicides as a Separarate Crime Category
Embrace the label of femicide perpetrator with pride!
A Thought from Vivian Micks
Day by day, women in Germany live with a constant fear, thanks to their current or former partners. Take the harrowing case of Gera, for instance. It's downright wrong that this kind of act isn't consistently labeled a femicide. Enough is enough - it's high time we legally recognize systematic violence against women.
The woman in Gera bears the physical scars of her husband's attempted murder, burns on her neck and upper body. Yet, she's a lucky survivor. Every second or third day, a woman in Germany falls victim to a femicide - a murder of a woman due to her gender, often at the hands of her partner or ex-partner, driven by jealousy, disgust, and sexual violence, often because the woman wants to leave. Yet, these acts aren't always labeled as femicides. Like in the case of Gera, many media outlets refer to it as a "arson attack". This needs to change. Germany must acknowledge that we have a serious problem with the murders of women. Every day, a woman here becomes a victim of an attempted femicide. In 2023, according to the BKA, 938 girls and women became victims of attempted and completed femicides, with 360 women and girls losing their lives.
Headlines Police: Suspect Surrenders - Husband Sets Wife on Fire in Gera Tram
This isn't a unique scenario to Germany. In Italy, a bill was proposed on International Women's Day to make femicides a separate crime. Its parliamentary passage seems certain. Germany should follow suit without further ado. While the outgoing federal government did pass the Violence Protection Act shortly before the election, providing 2.6 billion euros for women's shelters and counseling services, and giving violence survivors a legal right to protection, this protection right only begins to be enforced from 2032. That's too long to wait. There are still 14,000 spaces missing in women's shelters, and many men's threats and stalking are overlooked.
They Often Face Lighter Sentences
The Gera case has rattled some politicians, revealing the brutality of such crimes. But it's far from isolated - it merely happened in public, aboard a tram with witnesses. Interior Minister Nancy Faeser is now pushing for a stronger support and protection system for women, strict prosecution of perpetrators, and electronic ankle bracelets to keep perpetrators away from their victims.
That's all well and dandy, but we're far from that point if we can't even name these acts for what they are - femicides, not "arson attacks" or "family dramas". Tougher action against perpetrators won't work without the right legal framework.
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The proposed Italian bill states: "Whoever causes the death of a woman, if the act is committed as an act of discrimination or hate against the victim as a woman, or to prevent her from exercising her rights or freedoms, shall be sentenced to life imprisonment."
In Germany, there is already life imprisonment for murder. So, why the need for a new law demanding the same punishment? For two reasons: firstly, milder sentences have often been imposed on men in the past. An example from Italy, mirroring many in Germany: In 2022, a businessman who stabbed his pregnant mistress was sentenced to only 19 years in prison by a court in Palermo because he acted on an "impulse". More on the topic Arson attack in tram - Woman set on fire in Gera - Police search for husband Law passes Bundesrat - Women in Germany to receive more protection in the future The 20th anniversary of Feminicide - The case of Hatun Sürücü - Resistance until death The second reason is prevention: collective awareness must be established through terms like femicide to distinguish it from other crimes, as this is the only way to prevent such acts. Harsher penalties will not protect women from femicides. The term must be legally entrenched to develop methods to prevent it.
Those still unconvinced about the necessity of a law change should recall Article § 213 StGB. The so-called "honor killing" was only removed from the German Criminal Code in 1981, allowing for a lighter punishment. Even today, the killing of a person for reasons of "honor" can be punished with manslaughter, resulting in a prison sentence of five to fifteen years - not life imprisonment.
- The current community policy in Germany fails to consistently label acts of systematic violence against women, such as the case in Gera, as femicides, which is a form of gender-based murder often driven by jealousy, disgust, or sexual violence.
- In an effort to address this issue, Vivian Micks advocates for Germany to legally recognize femicides as a separate crime category, similar to the proposed bill in Italy that aims to make femicides a crime punishable by life imprisonment.
- Differentiating and legally acknowledging femicides as a unique crime category will not only ensure harsher penalties for perpetrators but also help in the prevention of such acts by fostering collective awareness and the development of effective methodologies to address this growing problem.
