31: the figure is inscribed in blood red on an improvised memorial listing the feminicides which mourned Austria last year.
After a long denial, the Alpine country of Central Europe is becoming aware of a paradox. There are few murders there, but there are more victims among women than men, a rarity in the European Union.
The figures fluctuate over the years but between 2010 and 2020, 319 women were killed, mainly by their spouse or ex-spouse, for 8.9 million inhabitants, details a study commissioned by the government. One of the highest rates in the EU, according to Eurostat data.
Far from the rallies against this scourge organized in France or Mexico, the subject was previously barely touched upon in Austria. It only came into public debate after particularly sordid crimes.
On March 5, 2021, a 35-year-old woman presented as Nadine W. was strangled with a cable in her tobacco shop by her ex-companion and then burned alive. She died a month later in hospital from her injuries.
– “Incredible brutality” –
Then in April, the owner of a beer store was arrested for having killed his former partner, mother of two children.
However, the 43-year-old man, since sentenced for these facts to life imprisonment, was already known to the public after an elected environmentalist published in 2018 obscene messages that he would have sent her on Facebook.
Since then, an awareness campaign has been launched and the government has stepped up its efforts, allocating a new budget of nearly €25 million in 2022 to combat violence against women.
So that those who perished do not fall into oblivion, Ana Badhofer began to shell the names of the victims on a wall in the capital.
“Few are indignant” at these crimes “of incredible brutality”, deplores this activist who wants to fight against the lethargy of society.
She cites the example of this young woman, filed in agony at the foot of an administration in November, after being beaten to death with a baseball bat.
– Economic dependence –
Karin Pfolz, who herself suffered through hell during the ten years of her marriage, still remembers her extreme loneliness.
“You have no one to talk to. So many of us are silent out of shame, out of fear of the reaction of society”, confides the one who now goes to schools to share her experience.
From the outside, the violence was invisible, the marks of blows hidden. “The black eye is a cliché,” she says.
Proportionally, women die much less than in Russia or Brazil, the most dangerous countries.
But in such a prosperous and calm region, where laws and a network of support exist, the “situation is incomprehensible”, estimates Maria Rösselhumer, head of AÖF, the main association managing reception centers.
Weak explanation, many mothers stay at home or work part-time in this Catholic country, and women often cannot afford to leave an abusive partner.
They earn 20% less than men, a pay gap unmatched in the EU with the exception of Estonia and Lithuania.
– Male chauvinism –
Under these conditions, few dare to take the plunge. Because “when you leave, you find yourself on the street with a plastic bag in one hand and your child in the other”, testifies Karin Pfolz.
When she fled, she felt “like a refugee in her own country”.
Maria Rösselhumer also evokes “a real lack of respect and disdain for women” in the political landscape, a machismo which has increased under the coalition uniting the conservatives and the far right between 2017 and 2019.
And if she welcomes the awakening of the authorities, she still judges them “negligent” behind the promises.
Austria was pinned in December by Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights Dunja Mijatovic, who called for “sufficient resources” and an “ambitious and comprehensive approach”.
“It’s true that we talk a lot about the subject at the moment,” comments Ms. Pfolz.
But even now, “hardly anyone” is offended by the mistreatment of women, she regrets. “Until there is murder”.
2022 had barely begun when this scourge claimed a new victim: a 42-year-old woman shot in the head by her husband at the dinner table.
Source: AFP
