Femicide is a significant issue. According to the United Nations, 137 women and girls across the globe get killed every day. Still, exact and complete data is hard to come by and the data collections of different countries, if they even exist, can’t really be compared. The European Observatory on Femicide works to improve this data collection and raise awareness about gender-based violence, as researchers and as activists.

Launched in 2018 at the University of Malta, The European Observatory on Femicide is the first institute observing gender-based violence in Europe. They have focal points in different countries who collect information on femicide and report on it. This way, they can create an overview of the changes in multiple countries and compare them.

Professor Monika Schröttle is one of the coördinators of the EOF and has worked within this field of research for the past thirty years. Even though they collect the data, she says it is about much more than that: “Our work is not about counting dead women, it’s about knowing more about the interventions and backgrounds, and helping policies to improve their actions all over Europe.” According to her, another vital role for the EOF is letting people know what has been done in other countries, especially the successful stories.

Definitions

One of the issues with data on femicide is the definition. European countries often use different definitions in law and police data, and an official one often does not exist. Therefore, the cases counted as femicide differ across the whole of Europe. The European Institute of Gender Equality (EIGE) also recommends the EU-27 to establish a definition of femicide in the legal context. According to their report on measuring femicide, killings of women are classified in diverse ways like “intentional homicide, non-intentional homicide and manslaughter.”

55% of female homicides are killed by an intimate partner or family members (UN Women)

According to Ksenia Meshkova, Advisory board member at the EOF, the process of data collection should not only be harmonized, but also go into more detail. Current data is usually based on police or court statistics, while the EOF tries to investigate cases deeper by also using information from NGO’s, academic research, the police press and news media. “To know how we can intervene, we need to know more: what were the reasons and background of the crime, were the police or any other institutions involved? This data usually does not make the police reports.”

Research and activism

By doing so, they aim to highlight the importance of strategic prevention against femicide. “When you think about it, it is kind of ridiculous,” says Meshkova: “European countries often cannot even say how many femicides they have. It is like it doesn’t matter, like it’s not important at all. While there are women being murdered.” Because the researchers at EOF support this idea, they do their work, even without getting paid.

“Even though we can’t work very effectively without financing, there are still researchers who are able and willing to work for free.” According to Schröttle, the whole project stands or falls with these volunteers. “We do it because we see the importance of this work. Of course we are researchers, but we are also activists, fighting for a safer world for women.”