In Limburg, a record number of three women were murdered by their (ex-) partner last year. Interest groups such as Veilig Thuis Zuid-Limburg and the Stay-of-my-body home are very concerned and speak of femicide, or the killing of women.
Forty women in the Netherlands die each year as a result of femicide. A number that has remained constant for years.
Term
Femicide literally means femicide. According to Renée Römkens, Professor Emeritus of Gender-Based Violence, the term is relevant to spark the debate that girls and women are more often exposed to it. “Women run a greater risk of being murdered in the relationship sphere. By using the term femicide, for example, the police and the Public Prosecution Service can become more involved in knowledge about the subject.”
Registration
“Good registration is important in order to be able to investigate the problem of female homicide,” says Machteld Beukema of Safe Home South Limburg. “Attempted strangulation is a signal of fatal violence,” says Beukema. “Now, an attempt at strangulation is not yet specifically registered anywhere in the Netherlands. It is described in the files, but you cannot tick it, which makes data analysis difficult. If you want to be able to do good research, then we and other organizations must otherwise register.”
Research
Römkens also finds the current registration by Statistics Netherlands insufficient. “If victim and perpetrator do not or no longer live together, they usually fall outside the usual CBS category for partner killing. This category uses cohabitation or being divorced as a criterion. They are then not included in the registration figures. For this reason, the CBS numbers are an underestimate. of the actual number of women killed each year by her partner or ex-partner.” So far, little scientific research has been conducted in the Netherlands into which factors can lead to femicide.
Also read: Eleven years in prison for Maastricht hammer murder
Maastricht
On Thursday, Henk V. (58) from Maastricht was sentenced to eleven years in prison. He beat his wife to death with a hammer in September 2020. Henk has stated that he acted on a whim. His wife had been having an affair with another man for months, even took that man to her matrimonial home and kissed him in front of Henk. Things went wrong on September 5, 2020.
pamphlet
In October 2021, Safe Home and Strong House published the pamphlet: Female killing: stop looking away† In this they called for everything to do to reduce the number of female deaths.
Also read: Suspected partner murder already killed girlfriend
Do you feel unsafe at home? Contact Safe Home: 0800-2000.