The European chapter of the Global Alliance for the Media and Gender (GAMAG Europe, GE), observes with great concern the new outbreak of sexist aggressions which has resulted in deaths and violence towards children, including murders, to “punish” their mothers. The tragic events that took place recently in Spain are a proof of this. The number of victims – which already exceeds 20 murders in the first six months of the year – is increasing so rapidly that the sum that we publish here today could unfortunately increase in a short period of time. This figure is swollen by women of all ages and backgrounds: urban and rural, workers and professionals, peasants and housewives, young and old. There are also journalists, such as the photojournalist murdered in Marmolejo (Jaén, Spain).

GAMAG Europe is also concerned about the lack of official figures on murdered women in many European countries, even in those that promised to provide them by signing the Istanbul Convention from the Council of Europe, which has been in force since 2014. Article 11 on Data Collection and Research reads: 1. For the purpose of the implementation of this Convention, Parties shall undertake to: a( collect disaggregated relevant statistical data at regular intervals on cases of all forms of violence covered by the scope of this Convention. The Convention was signed on May 11, 2011 and came into effect in Spain on August 1, 2014.

GAMAG Europe urges European institutions to do whatever necessary so that all countries have official and regular statistics on murdered women and girls and publish them. Governments must assume this responsibility. It will be difficult to stop this murders of women if society does not know the reality and journalists do not have that relevant information to reflect in the media the reality of violence against women

For its part, the European Institute for Gender Equality (EIGE) works with countries to collect data about different forms of violence against women, such as intimate femicide. However, these are not yet available in many countries and those that exist are hardly comparable.

Although there is no data for 2019 and 2020, the information collected in 2018 using similar methodological data from Czech Republic, Germany, Spain, France, Italy, Latvia , Lithuania, Malta, Netherlands, Slovenia, Slovakia, Finland and Sweden shows that in 2018 a total of 482 women were murdered at the hands of their partners or ex-partner (Source: EIGE).