Within a few days, two women were killed in a knife attack in Berlin. Germany has a “massive violence problem,” says Family Minister Paus. She wants to ensure that more shelters for women are set up.
After several attacks on women in Berlin, Federal Minister for Family Affairs Lisa Paus wants to better protect those affected by violence. “Our country has a massive problem of violence against women. This must stop,” said the Green Party politician in Berlin. “We not only need a security package against terrorist knife attackers, but also for the prevention and protection of women from violence.”
She is preparing a so-called violence assistance law that would give all those affected a right to protection, said Paus. That would save lives. “It will also cost money so that we can support the federal states in providing more prevention and shelter for women.” There are too few of these.
Two women stabbed
In Berlin, a 36-year-old woman was stabbed to death on Wednesday and a 28-year-old woman on Friday. Men are suspected in both cases. The attacker of the 36-year-old is said to have been her ex-husband, and the police believe it was a femicide based on initial findings.
Femicide means that women are killed because of their gender – that is, because they are women. The most common form is the killing of women by partners or ex-partners. Paus said: “Two femicides in Berlin in one week – every other day in Germany a woman is murdered by her partner or ex-partner. That makes me very angry.”
There was another knife attack on Friday. A man attacked a woman in an apartment in Berlin with a kitchen knife and strangled her. Police and prosecutors are calling the case, which occurred on Friday evening in Reinickendorf, an attempted murder.
“Purer Frauenhass”
Berlin’s Justice Senator Felor Badenberg has again called for consequences for the crimes. “We must finally do something about these brutal murders by men of women,” said the CDU politician, speaking of “pure misogyny.”
“I therefore appeal again to Justice Minister Buschmann: Include the ankle bracelet in the Violence Protection Act,” said Badenberg. At the same time, the state level is examining whether and how legal changes and preventive measures could be adapted.
Federal Justice Minister Marco Buschmann (FDP) recently said in an interview that he sees electronic ankle bracelets for perpetrators as a means of combating domestic violence and is open to using them. The states are responsible for police law and the use of ankle bracelets. He is having it examined whether there is scope for a federal law in this regard.
Murders of women by relatives
In the past, murders of women from Afghanistan by relatives caused outrage in Berlin. Two Afghan brothers killed their sister in July 2021, took her body in a suitcase by train to southern Germany and buried it in a forest there. The murder happened because the sister wanted to live according to her own ideas and that did not correspond to the family’s moral values, the court ruled in 2023 and imposed life sentences.
Also in 2023, the husband of a mother of six from Afghanistan was sentenced to life imprisonment. He had murdered the woman in revenge. He attacked her in the street with a hunting knife – just a few weeks after their separation.
