Across Europe, more than 14,000 women were intentionally killed for being a woman between 2012 and 2022.
However, this figure is likely an underestimation of reality, as few countries recognise femicide, resulting in many deaths being written off as “ordinary” murders. Belgium signed the Council of Europe’s Convention on Preventing and Combating Violence Against Women and Domestic Violence (better known as the Istanbul Convention) in 2016, which requires signatories to collect statistical data on gender-based violence.
Belgium last year positioned itself at the forefront of the battle against gender-based violence with a new law, the Stop Feminicide Law, in which the legal definition of femicide was enshrined and boosted protections for victims.
Recognising that, to fully understand the phenomenon and its scale, more accurate official statistics were needed, the country also vowed to improve the collection of statistics on the phenomenon. Belgium is one of the worst performers when it comes to femicide data collection, but suddenly became one of Europe’s legislative pioneers in the fight against this crime.
However, almost one year later, Le Soir reported that, while the Federal Government does collect general data on cases of domestic violence, as well as on suspects of domestic violence and their gender, no figures on femicide victims could be provided, not by the Public Prosecutor’s Office, nor by the Federal Police.
Source: Femicides: Belgium still failing to collect data despite pioneering law