ATHENS, Greece – The deaths of two women in Greece at the hands of their former partners just a day apart this week have revived calls to address the country’s alarming femicide record.
Thirteen women have already died this year, Greek media reported Wednesday.
The latest incidents took place in the west of the country.
A 43-year-old mother of three identified in reports as Dora was fatally shot Monday by her ex-partner on a street in the city of Agrinio, and died in hospital.
A day later, a 41-year-old woman from the city of Patras named Garyfalia died in an Athens hospital from injuries inflicted by her ex-partner several days earlier.
“Many things need to change immediately,” Natasha Makridima, a psychologist at the shelter for women victims of violence in the western city of Agrinio, told the daily Kathimerini.
In the Agrinio killing this week, the alleged attacker had been prosecuted for domestic violence and was due to appear in court just four days after the killing.
Greece last March introduced a smartphone panic button application for women facing violence at home.
Makridima said Dora had not downloaded the app on her phone. But police spokeswoman Konstantia Dimoglidou told state TV ERT on Tuesday that “given what happened” in the circumstances of her murder, the victim would not have had time to react.
There have been calls for more efforts within families and in schools to stamp out macho attitudes in the country.
“The patriarchy will not magically disappear,” Greek media site news247 said Wednesday, noting that even with the use of the panic button app, there are still “dangerous gaps” in safety for women.
One of the women murdered in Greece this year was killed in April outside an Athens police station, where she had gone with a friend to seek help over her ex-partner who was stalking her.
According to lawyer Sylvia Michalaki, who has defended victims of domestic violence, “the number of femicides has not increased particularly in Greece in recent years.”
“The problem existed in the past but since the MeToo movement, it is better known and debated more often than before,” she told AFP. — Agence France-Presse
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