Pak Sahafat – Austria has sounded the alarm over a significant increase in the murder of women by men in the country.
According to Pak Sahafat News agency report quoted by AFP on Tuesday, following the news of the murder of women in the Austrian media, this issue is now in the spotlight.
In this small and affluent country, where violent crime is generally unprecedented, there is a controversy that has provoked activists and forced politicians to act.
The statistics have varied over the years, but according to a study commissioned by the Austrian government last year, 319 women were killed in Austria between 2010 and 2020, mostly by a male partner or ex-partner.
Austria was one of the three EU member states with the highest murder rate in 2018, with the murder of a family member or relative.
However, women’s rights activist Anna Behdofer criticized the lack of outrage over the murder, citing an example in which a woman was beaten to death with a baseball bat.
The incident was so shocking that it brought the issue of female genital mutilation to the forefront in Austria.
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A 35-year-old woman was strangled with a cable after being beaten by her ex-partner. The killer then poured gasoline on him and set him on fire. The woman was rescued, but died a month later from severe injuries.
Recently, another man was arrested for the murder of his former partner. Both defendants were sentenced to life imprisonment and transferred to a psychiatric ward.
According to the report, activists from France to Mexico, South Africa to Turkey have staged massive demonstrations to warn against murder and violence against women.
In Austria, the coalition government recently allocated € 25 million ($ 28 million) this year to tackle the problem.
The killings have sparked sentiment in a European country where women are being killed more than men.
According to Isabel Haider, a criminologist at the University of Vienna, law enforcement officers should also be trained to react more sensitively, as many women feel that the police do not take them seriously.
During a recent visit to Austria, Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights Donja Mijatovi called for an ambitious and comprehensive approach to protecting women’s rights and gender equality.
He stressed that the gender pay gap in Austria, according to Eurostat, was slightly less than 20% in 2019, which was one of the largest gaps in the European Union.