November 25 was historically established in 1981 by Latin American and Caribbean feminists as a day of remembrance for the assassination of the three Mirabal Reyes sisters in 1960 by the dictator Rafael Trujillo.

In 1999, the UN established 25/11 as the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women with the aim of raising social and political awareness of this still invisible “pandemic”, as it has recently been described.

Event “Femicide: from the street to the law”

On the occasion of International Day, the Diotima Center and the Editors’ Newspaper co-organized on November 23, 2020, an event on “Femicide: from the street to the law“.

According to the coordinator of the event, Anna Vouyuka (researcher and gender expert), the reasons for such an event are primarily the thousands of women who are murdered every year worldwide, because they are women.

Femicide is the killing of women because of their gender, with the perpetrators in the majority of cases being abusive husbands, partners, and relatives, who inflict chronic violence on the victims. In the past, they were hidden behind the so-called “crimes of honor”, while in recent history by the term “crimes of passion”.

In essence, these are crimes committed in the context of deeply entrenched patriarchal power relations and male-dominated notions, according to which women as subservient to men, remain exposed to “correction” and “punishment”, through the exercise of control and all forms of gender-based violence.

The relentless reality of numbers

The evidence is overwhelming. For example, according to a relevant UN survey for 2017, we know that:

• An average of 137 women were murdered worldwide by a family member every day in 2017
• Over 58% were murdered by an intimate partner, spouse, or other family members
• femicides increased by 81.25% from 2012 to 2017, on a global scale.[I]

The numbers are just as alarming in Europe: In France, femicides increased by a fifth in 2019, during which 146 women were murdered, while in the United Kingdom, since 2018, one woman is being murdered by a man every three days.[ii]

In Italy, according to the National Statistical Service, an average of 155 femicides are committed each year – one every 2.5 days. From 2010 to 2019, 1,207 femicides were recorded despite the existence of a relevant law (L. 119/2013 known as the “Femicide Law”).

However, since 2013 there has been a significant decrease in these percentages, and this is, on the one hand, connected with the ratification of the Istanbul Convention and on the other with the legal recognition of femicide and the passing of the relevant law.[iii]

Also, in Spain during the 16 years (2003-2019) since femicides began to be recorded (2003), more than 1,000 women were murdered because of their gender.[iv]

In Greece, according to unofficial data (Sexual Harassment Map)[v],in a decade (2011 – 2020), 64 women were murdered. It should be noted that since 2016 there has been a steady increase in femicides, while in 2020 10 women were murdered.

Speakers and presentations

• Marina Maropoulou, legal anthropologist, teacher of the course “Feminism and Law”, at the Faculty of Law of the Athens University of Applied Sciences on the topic “Femicide: the conditions for the genesis and acceptance of a new legal term”
• Athina Papanagiotou, post-doctoral researcher, lawyer, and member of the Editorial Board of Feministiqa magazine, on “Law-resonance: Gender taxonomies, sexist histories, heteronormative economies”
• Katerina Sergidou, PhD candidate in Gender and Feminism Studies, Panteion University and the University of the Basque Country, member of the March 8 Assembly on “Feminist practices in defense of life from the Spanish-speaking world to Greece”
• Dina Daskalopoulou, journalist, in the Journal of Editors, on the topic “A forbidden word in the newsroom – framing of femicide and construction of the “woman” in the media”

Dina Daskalopoulou talked about power games and sexism in the newsroom looking at how we go from fact to news, who sets the agenda, and who chooses the framing. She pointed out that the majority of the systemic media “murders” for a second time the women who have lost their lives because of their gender or at best keeps “equal” distances from the perpetrator and the victim.

In order to change this, apart from the increased participation of women in positions of responsibility and particularly women with a feminist perspective, and the commitment of a newspaper/a medium to the support of human rights and the elimination of violence against women, training, and awareness of journalists is required, of editors and inclusion of gender studies in communication schools.

Interventions

• Vangelis Kosmatos: psychologist – gender expert, responsible for the scientific work of the Gender Alliance Initiative on the topic of “Toxic masculinity: a fruit that fell from the sky or a weed that grows from below?”

In his intervention, V. Kosmatos made a short interactive presentation inspired by the material and methodology of the organization’s work with minors and adults. Their goal, as he mentioned, is to highlight the invisible and largely unconscious (in the collective unconscious – social body) stereotypical gender constructions, at the end of which we encounter dead bodies: women, primarily, but also LGBTI people, as well as everyone in by virtue of femininity and non-stereotypical masculinity.

In the middle of this journey, he briefly outlined the construction of toxic versions of masculinity and how gender-stereotyped pedagogy works, highlighting its connection to dominance, aggression, and the devaluing of women.

He finally emphasized the need to approach the phenomena of gender-based violence with an inclusive and cross-thematic perspective in order to reach a free society that will include everyone, everyone, and everything without exclusion.

• Maria Apostolaki, lawyer, Coordinator of the Legal Service, Diotima Center, on “How the problematic response system of the authorities to gender-based violence leads to the increase in femicides?”

The event/discussion was attended by a large number of people who fuelled a lively (electronic) dialogue with messages and comments, demonstrating the necessity of public dialogue that contributes to the radicalization of young – mainly – people, who are worried, questioning, and looking for a way out of a sexist and authoritarian world.

Notes

[i] UN Research (United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime – UNODC) 2018

[ii] The Guardian/ If I’m not in on Friday, I might be dead’: chilling facts about UK femicide www.theguardian.com/society/2020/nov/22/if-im-not-in-on-friday -i-might-be-dead-chilling-facts-about-uk-femicide

[iii] Sorrentino, A., Guida, Ch., Cinquegrana, V., Costanza Baldry A. (2020), Femicide Fatal Risk Factors: A Last Decade Comparison between Italian Victims of Femicide by Age Groups International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health2020 , 17, 7953; doi:10.3390/ijerph17217953 www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/17/21/7953

[iv] Beatriz Arroyo, 29, became the thousandth victim of femicide when, in June 2019, she decided to divorce her partner and start a new life. When she told him he choked her and threw her off the balcony and the next morning he also committed suicide by falling off the balcony. June 10, 2019 was characterized as a dark day in the history of “gang” violence in Spain because on that day the thousandth woman lost her life. www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-49586759

[v] Sexual Harassment map https://sexharassmap.espivblogs.net/2019/11/25/femicides-2019/