It is not yet in the dictionary but ‘femicide’ exists. It is women’s murder, committed by a partner or ex-partner. And often there are already several complaints at the police or Veilig Thuis about the threat based on that partner. It is a lurid pattern that seems to have cost life again last week to two women.
A woman is killed by an (former) partner in the Netherlands about every two weeks, according to the Femicide monitor from Leiden University. Of the 448 women who were killed from 2014 to 2024, 60 percent of the things came into the books as a femicide. 100 percent of the perpetrators, it says, is male.
Last week it happened twice. First in Gouda, where 53-year-old Driekus K. shot his 39-year-old ex-wife on the street. He had been in detention for thirteen years for attempted manslaughter on another ex. According to the report of an eyewitness, his working method barely differed: he also hid in Gouda, wore binoculars and fired bullets on his ex who walked on the street with her children.
A few days later, a 38-year-old woman in Vlijmen, Brabant, was killed in her home in the presence of a small child; The police arrested her boyfriend that day.
Like child abuse and domestic violence, threatening femicide is not always easy to see or predict. You have to see it and work on it as mayor Huri Sahin van Rijswijk have been trying to do for two years. After two cases of femicide in her municipality, she called to email all women on her when they live in fear by their partner or ex-partner. She received sixty messages of which twenty ‘very urgent’. In an interview at the end of last year, she said that after a conversation with a frightened woman who was threatened by her husband, the police herself brought it. Until then, the woman had received too little help. “Suddenly she could do one Awareness system Get an alarm button with which you will immediately have contact with the control room. ”
Every woman who is murdered by a possessive or otherwise derailed man is one too many. On average 44 a year in the Netherlands is embarrassing.
A year ago, the outgoing cabinet announced one ‘Plan of action femicide’ that ‘red flags’ are listing that can indicate that a man may kill his wife or ex: stalking, Intimate terror or threat. Also a woman who is being further isolated by her friend and slowly breaks all ties with family and friends, is at risk, according to research.
Professionals and bystanders must recognize those red flags, the relevant ministers wrote. As she brought child abuse and elder abuse in large campaigns, such a campaign would also be useful for femicide. It is essential that the police and care providers take women seriously who report such complaints. And that there is room in the stay-of-my-body house.