ANALYSIS Femicide - when all murders are equal, but do not resemble each other

The homicide rate in Romania remains relatively low, but almost every week a woman is killed – most often by a partner or ex-partner. The concept of "femicide" promises visibility and harsher penalties, but the experience of other countries shows that real change depends less on new articles in the Penal Code and more on how the police, justice, and social services operate.

Cold numbers: who dies, who kills

In international statistics, Romania is not an extreme case: the overall homicide rate has hovered in recent years around 1-2 victims per 100,000 inhabitants, below the level of some states in the region and far below global negative records. At first glance, it does not seem like a phenomenon that would require a redefinition of the penal code.

But the way these murders are distributed tells a more nuanced story. UN studies on homicides indicate that, globally and in Europe, between 80 and 90% of homicide perpetrators are men, and the majority of victims are also men – especially in murders related to organized crime, altercations, or violence in public spaces. Women represent a minority of total victims, but they are disproportionately killed by someone very well known: an intimate partner or a family member.

Romania follows, broadly speaking, the same pattern. The "classic" profile of the male victim is linked to conflicts in public spaces or criminality, while the "classic" profile of the female victim indicates murder in private spaces, after repeated episodes of domestic violence. NGOs have been talking for several years about "almost one woman killed per week" in Romania, most often by a current or former partner.

What is femicide and why is it not just "the murder of a woman"

Femicide is generally defined as the killing of a woman "on account of gender", meaning murder that originates in gender roles and stereotypes, control, possessiveness, or hatred towards women. Not every murder in which the victim is a woman falls into this category; context, history, and motivation matter.

An EIGE (European Institute for Gender Equality) report dedicated to Romania, "Measuring femicide in Romania", shows that a significant portion of murders of women is preceded by prolonged violence, explicit threats, protection orders, and repeated contact with the police or courts. The authors speak of the "tip of the iceberg" of gender violence: behind every case that reaches the statistics lies a background of abuse that could have been identified and addressed earlier.

Is femicide increasing or is its visibility just increasing?

Globally, UN studies show a slight decrease in overall homicides, but the killings of women and girls by partners or family members have not decreased to the same extent. In some regions, the number of these murders has remained stable or even increased, despite the overall decline in violent crime.

In Romania, the picture is even more complicated, as data has not been systematically collected and published under the label of "femicide" for a long time. EIGE reports and analyses from relevant organizations observe, however, a few trends:

• an increase in the reporting of cases of domestic violence and violence against women;

• an increase in the public visibility of murder cases in the context of gender violence, through campaigns and media pressure;

• the persistence of a significant annual number of women killed by partners or ex-partners, without a clear decrease that can be attributed to any major reform.

Is there a need for a separate crime of "femicide"?

Here the consensus breaks down. Some countries, especially in Latin America, but also a few European states, have introduced a distinct crime of femicide in their penal codes or created aggravated forms of murder when the motivation is based on the victim's gender. Croatia, for example, adopted a reform in 2024 making femicide a separate crime, considered by women's organizations as "a symbolic turning point".

Supporters of such a provision point out several benefits:

• explicit recognition of gender violence as a structural problem;

• the obligation for police and justice to document the gender motive, the relationship between perpetrator and victim, the history of violence;

• the possibility of collecting comparative data and evaluating public policies.

On the other hand, comparative evaluations are not as spectacular as activists would like. An analysis by the World Bank shows that, in 2023, only 29 economies had explicit laws regarding femicide, covering about 11% of the world's women, while over 51,000 women were killed globally. In many Latin American states, although femicide has been a distinct crime for years, the number of cases has decreased slowly or not at all – where police, prosecutors, and justice remain underfunded and ineffective.

Critics of the idea of a separate crime raise two issues:

• redundancy: if aggravated murder and aggravating circumstances (discriminatory motive, family relationship, victim's vulnerability) are well defined and applied, a new crime would unnecessarily complicate the penal code;

• the risk of creating a "hierarchy among victims": the idea that the killing of a woman would be punished differently than the killing of a man, a child, or an elderly person, which would generate discussions about equality before the law.

From the perspective of international human rights law, differential treatment can still be accepted if it has a legitimate purpose (protection of a group exposed to a specific risk) and is proportional. Hence the compromise solutions adopted by some states: maintaining a single crime of murder, but explicitly introducing the gender motive as an aggravating circumstance, plus the obligation to collect and report data on femicide separately.

Beyond the penal code: what actually works

Comparative experience and recommendations from UNODC (United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime), EIGE, or WHO converge towards an uncomfortable conclusion: introducing the crime of femicide may help with visibility and symbolism, but the actual reduction of the number of women killed depends on less spectacular political measures.

Shelters, counseling, exit from violent relationships

Reports for Romania highlight the lack of sufficient shelters for victims of gender violence, especially in rural areas, and the precarious funding of those that exist. Without a place to flee with children, a protection order remains, in practice, a piece of paper.

Hotlines, psychological and legal counseling centers, economic support programs – all appear in standard recommendations for reducing murders in the context of domestic violence.

Protection orders and risk assessment

In many of the cases analyzed in Europe, the murdered woman had already sought help: she had filed complaints, obtained protection orders, called the police several times. The problem was not the absence of legal provisions, but the fact that they were not applied seriously.

UNODC insists on using standardized risk assessment tools – sets of questions about threats, access to weapons, escalation of violence, recent separation – which police officers, prosecutors, and social workers should apply systematically.

In Romania, EIGE reports recommend strengthening the mechanisms for issuing and monitoring protection orders, so that violations do not remain without consequences and are treated as major alarm signals, not as minor incidents.

"Femicide reviews": learning from failures

Another recent tool is "femicide reviews", detailed, multi-agency reviews of each femicide case or a representative sample. Police, prosecutors, courts, social services, and health analyze together what happened before the murder: what complaints existed, what decisions were made, where the chain broke.

UNODC promotes such mechanisms as part of good practices in gender-sensitive criminal justice. For Romania, introducing systematic reviews – not just isolated case reports – could very concretely show where the system gets stuck: at the police officer who "mediates" between the aggressor and the victim, at the prosecutor who dismisses complaints, at the court that turns repeated violence into a simple misdemeanor.

What about "discrimination" among victims?

The question of whether femicide as a separate crime would create discrimination among victims is legitimate. If the killing of a woman were automatically classified as a more serious crime than the killing of a man or an elderly person, a tough discussion about equality before the law would open up.

The dominant response in the literature is that we are not talking about a hierarchy of the value of life, but about recognizing specific risks and patterns of violence that require specific tools. The murder of a child, the murder of a person in the care of the perpetrator, or murder on racist grounds are already treated in many legislations as aggravated or distinct forms, without this being seen necessarily as discrimination against other victims.

In practice, a solution for Romania could look like this: • clear definition of the gender motive and gender violence as aggravating circumstances in the case of murder;

• the obligation for authorities to collect and publish data on these cases, according to a methodology aligned with UN and EIGE standards;

• possibly, separate incrimination of the violation of protection orders or the repetition of gender violence, as a "buffer zone" before femicide.

In the absence of these tools, a simple declarative provision about femicide risks remaining a new article in an old code.

The fundamental question for Romania

Ultimately, the debate about femicide in Romania does not boil down to a new word in the penal code. It comes down to the question of whether the state is willing to treat the murders of women as a predictable phenomenon linked to gender violence, not as a sum of individual tragedies.

International data show that simply increasing penalties or introducing a new crime is not enough to quickly reduce the number of women killed. What makes the difference, in countries that have managed to lower the curve, is a combination of:

• real support infrastructure for victims;

• protection orders applied firmly and monitored;

• institutions capable of identifying and managing risk;

• mechanisms for learning from each murder case in the context of gender violence.

Introducing the crime of femicide can be an important political signal. But without the other pieces, it risks becoming just a beautifully formulated promise, in a system that continues to leave women alone in the face of the most predictable type of crime: murder announced by years of violence.

Analysis conducted with the support of Perplexity