November 25th is the day to draw attention to violence against women and girls. But this should actually be an issue much more often, because the numbers on intimate partner violence are still frightening and far too little is being done about it.
What happens if 113 people die in a major disaster? That’s right, the world is watching and there are reports from all over the world that people take part in the death. In 2021 alone, at least 113 women in Germany died at the hands of their partner, through violence in a relationship. That’s over nine women a month, more than two women a week, ergo every third day a woman dies at the hands of the man she loves.
But Germany doesn’t talk enough about the fact that life is different for women than it is for men. Of course there are also men who are affected by physical and psychological violence in a partnership, but 81 percent of the victims of intimate partner violence are still women. In addition, women are physically weaker and financially, through children and the like, often more dependent on their partner than the other way around.
Nevertheless, the German laws give little protection for women. Of course you can report your partner for a wide variety of crimes, such as physical harm, but it becomes difficult even with the psychological component. On the one hand, threats and insults are difficult to prove, on the other hand, reporting increases the fear that your partner or then ex-partner is stalking you.
Imagine you have a man who has already physically injured you or psychologically threatened and terrorized you, so the potential for aggression is palpable, what do you really do if you are honest with yourself? Go to the police and report him? While it’s the only right thing to do, it massively increases the fear – will he retaliate? The level of punishment in Germany for such offenses is a joke and still offers victims far too little protection.
As a rule, women are physically weaker than men, and this is not taken into account in politics. It’s great that the perpetrator may not be allowed to come near with a restraining order, but does he stick by when she comes home from work in the dark? Or will it remain, even if he doesn’t comply, with a judicial “You, you, you, not again?”. Questions that countless women who are victims of intimate partner violence ask themselves every day.
I wish that German politicians and, subsequently, the judiciary would finally respond to the fact that women have equal rights, but that there is still a massive difference between a muscular man weighing 120 kilos threatening a 55-kilo woman, hitting her, stalking her in the park, like a woman would do the same. What man fears physical assault after reporting his ex-wife, who weighs between 50 and 70 kilos? That doesn’t justify the crime, but the level of protection and the level of punishment cannot and must not continue to be the same for both sexes, which means that the fear in this sector isn’t either.
What: BMI
