German study reveals vast scale of violence inflicted on partners

Every day in Germany a man tries to kill a woman; every third day, a man succeeds. Those are the main findings of a major German report into physical, mental and sexual abuse, largely experienced by women at the hands of men.

In total almost 140,000 cases of violence towards a partner were registered last year in Germany, a figure federal family minister Franziska Giffey described as “shocking”.

Even more shocking: those figures are an estimated 20 per cent of the total, with the other 80 per cent never reported.

“For a modern country like Germany this is on an unimaginable scale,” said Ms Giffey. “For many women, their own home is a dangerous place where fear reigns.”

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German perpetrators

In case anyone blamed immigrant communities, in particular patriarchal Turkish, Kurdish and Arab families, the minister pointed out that 72 per cent of victims and 68 per cent of perpetrators were German.

Turks and Turkish Germans – who make up roughly 5 per cent of the population – were the next largest group: 4 per cent of victims and 5.9 per cent of perpetrators.

“If you read the papers you sometimes have the feeling only refugees and migrants beat and kill their women,” said Ms Giffey, suggesting that these cases simply received more media attention.

In total 82 per cent of the victims were women and 61 per cent of reported cases involved physical abuse. Threats, stalking and harassment by a current or previous partner totalled 23 per cent of cases. Serious physical attacks – fatal and non-fatal – make up 12 per cent of cases.

Last year 364 women and 91 men in Germany were victims of attempted murder. Some 141 women and 32 were killed by their previous or current partner.

Operators of a leading helpline for victims of domestic violence said comparing their own statistics with the reported cases suggested that just one in five victims files a formal complaint. Social class plays a role in the likelihood of experiencing abuse, according to a previous family ministry report. It found that young women without a third-level education were more likely to be the victims of abuse, although older women with higher education were more likely to be abused than those with a simple school diploma.

The same study found that male perpetrators were more likely to abuse female partners with the same or higher level of education.

Psychological violence

For those who work with abused women in Germany, the family ministry report contained few surprises. Stefanie Leiche, head of a women’s refuge in Hamburg, said the most common residents were women aged between 35 and 45, though 60-year-old women sometimes come through their doors, too.

“What shouldn’t be underestimated is the psychological violence many women experience,” she told Zeit Online. “They are locked in, cannot leave the house, are controlled, aren’t allowed have their own money, job or go to a language course. The social isolation is horrific.”

Currently Germany has just 7,000 womens’ refuge places nationwide, criticised as far too low by refuge operators, prompting the family minister to promise improvement.

Beyond physical or sexual violence, the report says every five minutes in Germany a woman is abused, stalked or threatened. The number of registered attacks on women by their partner is equivalent to the number of break-ins but while burglaries feature regularly in the news, domestic violence rarely does.

Federal justice minister Katharina Barley said she hoped the report would help break the culture of shameful silence that normalises and enables further violence. “For that reason,” she said, “it is important to make this topic public and say to people: ‘You’re not alone.’”