Ultra-safe Austria grapples with femicides as 31 women were killed in 2021
More women than men were murdered in Austria last year, a rare occurrence in European Union member states, as the country begins to grapple with its femicide problem.
Thirty-one women were killed across the small Alpine country of 8.9 million people — a number inscribed in blood-red at a makeshift memorial listing the femicides committed in 2021.
The figures fluctuate over the years, but between 2010 and 2020, 319 women were killed, mainly by their spouses or ex-spouses, according to a study commissioned by the government. This is one of the highest rates in the EU, according to Eurostat data.
Far from the rallies against this scourge organised in France or Mexico, the subject is barely addressed in Austria. It only came to the fore in the public debate after some particularly sordid crimes.
On 5 March 2021, a 35-year-old woman identified as Nadine W. was strangled with a cable in her tobacconist's shop by her ex-partner and then burned alive. She died a month later in hospital from her injuries.
Then in April, the owner of a beer shop was arrested for killing his former partner, a mother of two children. The 43-year-old man, who has since been sentenced to life imprisonment for these offences, was already known to the public after an elected environmentalist published obscene messages he had allegedly sent her on Facebook in 2018.
Since then, an awareness campaign has been launched and the government has stepped up its efforts, allocating a new budget of almost €25 million in 2022 to combat violence against women.
To ensure that those who have died are not forgotten, Ana Badhofer has begun to list the names of the victims on a wall in the capital.
"Few are outraged" by these crimes "of unprecedented brutality", the activist
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