Since the beginning of the year, at least 33 women have been killed in Romania, either by their current or former partners. According to Eurostat data for the period 2021–2024, our country ranks fourth in the European Union in terms of violence against women in couples, a ranking that reflects the lack of a firm and consistent response from the authorities.
The numbers are shocking: 45.5% of women in Romania say they have been psychologically abused by their partners. Almost one in four women (25.4%) has been a victim of physical violence, which means hundreds of thousands of cases ignored, normalized, or covered up. It should also be noted that neither education, social class, nor urban living offer protection. On the contrary: 35.8% of women with higher education have been victims of domestic abuse, while in urban areas, where access to information and services is supposed to be better, 46.2% of women have been abused by their partners.
Yet, each time a woman is killed by her partner, ex-husband, or a man who “cannot accept rejection,” Romania sighs, expresses outrage for all of two days, and then falls silent. It spins in sterile circles: “it was jealousy,” “he loved her too much,” “it was a tragedy.” But the harsh truth is that we are dealing with a crime of hatred and possessiveness. A phenomenon that does not yet bear the name it deserves: femicide.
It is not just “a crime of passion.” It is the expression of a culture in which women are seen as objects of personal use. A culture that tells victims to endure, to forgive, to ”think of the children.” All while the state promises protection but fails to deliver. While restraining orders are dead letters. While the police only react after the blood is already on the pavement.
Romania is experiencing legislative schizophrenia: it talks about “equality” in European campaigns, but refuses to legally recognize that women are killed because they are women. Femicide is not a „radical” concept, as some try to portray it. It is simply a description of reality.
And if reality is intolerable, then all the more reason to call it what it is. Every woman killed by “the man who loved her” is a death sentence signed by an entire society. By all of us, as long as we remain silent. And a state that does not criminalize femicide implicitly recognizes that a woman’s life is worth less. Thus begins our national shame.
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