Speech by Aristos Damianou, AKEL Political Bureau member and Head of Justice Department of the C.C. of AKEL at a conference on Femicide organised by POGO Women’s Movement

 

 23 March 2022, AKEL C.C. Press Office, Nicosia

Violence in its many levels and manifestations is a reprehensible and heinous attempt to impose power on human societies, whether it is exercised by individuals, groups or states. Although the intensity and extent of various forms of violence changes according to historical and cultural conditions, femicide is unfortunately a crime inherent in a system – which is perpetuated – of patriarchal power and patriarchal concepts and outlooks.

As has been aptly put by scholars, “there is a thread connecting the murder of female infants in the ancient world and modern gender-based embryo selection, the burning of witches in the early modern era and the cold-blooded execution of female students at the Montreal Polytechnic, the murder of the ‘infidel’ Desdemona by Othello, the ‘honor crimes’ of the last century and modern so-called crimes of passion”. This connection lies in the common sexist background of these crimes, in the treatment of women as subordinate to men, in the submissive treatment of women. Especially when a woman chooses not to submit to the stereotypical roles, boundaries and norms set by the given patriarchal society in question.

It is therefore no coincidence that it took many efforts and struggles for the organised international women’s movement to be able to give visibility to this historically longstanding crime and to codify it by linking the killing of women and girls to their gender. Although femicide as a concept had already captured in British legal terminology as early as 1801 (in the Wharton Law Journal) and criminologist Diana Russell who defined it as “killing women intentionally because they are women” used it in 1976, presenting it in subsequent criminology texts, it took many more years for it to become a widespread concern in the legal community and in our societies.

The attempt to give visibility to this reprehensible and heinous phenomenon led to the search for a universal definition. The definition that seems to prevail internationally and is attributed to the Council of Europe and the World Health Organisation (WHO), presents femicide as “the intentional homicide of women because they are women”. The Vienna Declaration (2012) on femicide, issued by the UN Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) defines femicide as “the killing of women and girls because of their gender” and refers to specific manifestations of the phenomenon, such as the killing of women by a current or former husband or partner, the targeted killing of women and girls in the context of an armed conflict, killings linked to honor or dowry crimes, because of their sexual orientation or gender identity, the killing of Aboriginal and Indigenous women and girls on the basis of their gender, the infanticide of girls and the killing of female foetuses, deaths associated with female genital mutilation, femicide associated with organised crime gangs, such as drug, human and arms trafficking, etc.

However, at the same time as the conceptual codification of femicide, which is not enough in itself, the very risks to women’s lives, safety and dignity that for years have almost exclusively mobilised women’s organisations have become a challenge for every modern and prosperous state. Extreme forms of this phenomenon, such as in Latin American countries with the mass murders of women (Mexico), have led to militant mobilisations that have resulted in the inclusion of a legal response to the problem.

More specifically, femicide as a criminal act has already been incorporated into the legislation of countries such as Chile, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala and Mexico. Argentina recognized femicide as a legal term in 2016 after three unidentified men raped and murdered an underage schoolgirl, which caused a storm of protests. More recently, the Senate of the Dominican Republic recognized femicide as a crime with a 40-year prison sentence.

In Europe, in recent years, and particularly since the adoption of the Istanbul Convention, the debate and search for ways of legislating to address the phenomenon of femicide, as the most extreme form of gender-based violence, has become increasingly widespread. Attempts to legislate against femicide are being made in Spain, Italy, Belgium and France. For example, Spain was the first European country to adopt a law in 2004 making the sex of the victim an aggravating circumstance in a murder.

The search for legal mechanisms for the prevention, treatment and conviction of homicide – based on motives that are linked to the gender of the victim – has therefore been rightly opened up in Cyprus as well. Not only in order to be in line with the modern trends in the legal structure of the international community, but because unfortunately gender-based violence and femicide remain a real and sad phenomenon that must be ended in Cyprus as well.

Having said that, at the same time I point out that many measures have been taken as a result of the catalytic role of women’s organisations, with the decisive contribution of POGO, which systematically and persistently demands from the state the formulation of policies, legislation and mechanisms to curb all forms of gender-based violence, including its ultimate and most fatal form. Indeed, it would be an omission if I did not mention the immediate reaction of POGO to the inadequate reactions and decisions of the Police and the Attorney General regarding the serial killer of foreign women, when many people at the material time deliberately chose to remain silent. The contribution of civil society more broadly and a number of NGO’s towards highlighting the distinct character of femicide sociologically and legally is also important.

The numbers are inexorable and the reluctance of some to identify responsibilities, to oppose in a concrete way existing pathologies, problematic practices, sexist attitudes of services and superiors, can’t be hidden behind politically refined positions – all the more so when the numbers correspond to human lives.

In Cyprus, in the period 2010-2016, 28 cases of femicide were recorded, of which 75% were committed within the context of intimate partner domestic violence. From 2019-2020, 13 femicides were recorded including two children. The majority of perpetrators were male and Cypriot. At the same time, next to these numbers, the complaints made in 2020 by 407 women who received death threats, 322 women who received violence with an object or weapon and 129 women who reported attempted strangulation must be listed. Global surveys reveal that an average of 137 women are murdered every day around the world, by former or current husbands or partners, or by a family member.

And the figures for the period of incarceration due to the pandemic and the months that subsequently followed, although still ongoing, are equally horrifying. By way of example, figures, mainly released from NGO’s, show that in Spain – following the lifting of the state of emergency due to the Covid-19 pandemic – a woman is murdered every three days by her former or current partner. In Belgium in the first four months of 2021, 13 femicides were registered, compared to 24 in the whole of 2020. In France, 56 women have been murdered since the beginning of 2021, while during the same period in 2020 the number was 46.

It is with these facts and data that today in Parliament we are trying to find the most appropriate way to recognize this heinous phenomenon in a legal sense, to name the crime and denounce in the most universal way the sexist motives that characterize it. At the heart of the reflections underway on the inclusion of femicide in the legal system is the more general separation of femicide from homicide. Given the position that human life, irrespective of gender, is the supreme good and must be afforded equal protection in all cases, the term femicide does not negate or recast the term homicide. We consider it reflects, in a specific way, a form of homicide which, because of its specificity and motives, is imperative that should become visible. Just as it is recorded in the Vienna Declaration on Femicide, to which I have already referred to, as defined by the World Health Organization and the Council of Europe.

An approach which we adopt and according to which femicide is the killing of women because they are women. Although we acknowledge that there are broader definitions that include any murder of women or girls, these definitions fail to deliver the point: to show which sexist motives, fed back by prevailing patriarchal attitudes, sustain cultures and attitudes that lead to the taking of women’s lives.

It is for this reason that within our own legislation as well, it is the conceptual definition of femicide as gender homicide (murder of women whose commission has an essential link with gender), rather than a broad definition covering every murder of a woman or girl, that justifies the demand for the emergence of femicide as a specific form of homicide that does not discriminate, but aims to combat it.

In essence, the distinctive characterisation of the gender-based homicide of a woman or girl is a necessary condition to reveal the extent and extreme consequences of gender-based violence, to address the stereotypical perceptions that fuel it and for the correct measures to be taken to address it.

Needless to say, we welcome the initiative undertaken by the President of the House of Representatives in proposing a bill of law. Even this morning we have continued to reflect and contribute positively to the effort to arrive at a legal balance: on the one hand, creating visibility around the definition and use as a legal term in criminal justice of femicide and, on the other hand, ensuring that no legal complications arise.

Personally, on a purely legal level, instead of creating a matching offence identical to the existing Article 205 of the Criminal Code, which would lead to legal complications and confusion, I would prefer the explicit reference to femicide as a strong aggravating factor in the sentence. This is something that other states have done – not by chance – as well. That is, adding years of serving a sentence as a result of femicide in a way that is explicitly and statutorily defined as an obligation of the sentencing court. This may – possibly – be accompanied by a mandatory minimum sentence, for example, 30 years, or other consequences. For example, disqualification from or delay in connection with the exercise of a right to parole, namely, an application for conditional release.

The central goal – however – must remain to create visibility for femicide not only as part of the criminal justice system, but as a gender-related social crime. In other words, creating a culture and awareness against this heinous and vile crime. And – unfortunately – this is precisely where the basic deficiencies of our state and society are recorded.

And in this sense we have a long way to go. And this is a path we must march on together, both in society and in Parliament. As we have done with the amendment that we brought about, on AKEL’s initiative, to the crime of “rape” because gender violence, stereotypes against women, inequality and gender inequality, and therefore the fight to eliminate them, cannot and must not be the concern of women alone. This struggle must be a joint one, waged by both women and men together.