We live in a society where women are still seen as property and men do not hesitate to take the lives of their intimate partners. Albania is the country with the highest rate of intimate partner homicides in Europe. The data was published by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), in its latest report "Global Study on Gender-Related Homicide of Women and Girls".
According to the graphs published in this report, Albania had the highest level of murders by intimate partners, with 0.7 murders per 100 women, according to data referring to the year 2016. This is the highest level in Europe. Most of the murders of women in Albania are committed precisely by their partners (total murders of women are 1 per 100).
After Albania, Iceland is in second place, with 0.6 murders per 100 thousand women, followed by Croatia (0.5), Lithuania (0.5), Finland (0.4) and Switzerland (0.4).
In Europe, the highest murders of women are in Lithuania with 2.9 per 100 thousand women, 0.5 of which by intimate partners.
According to the UNODC report, murder represents the most extreme form of violence against women. As this research shows, gender-related killings of women and girls remain a serious problem across regions, in rich and poor countries. While the vast majority of homicide victims are men, killed by strangers, women are more likely to die at the hands of someone they know.
Women killed by intimate partners or family members accounted for 58 percent of all female homicide victims reported globally last year, and little progress has been made in preventing such killings.
High and violence against women
Other INSTAT data show that there is an increase in the number of reports on domestic violence against women. During 2017, for every 10 women, 22.7 women were raped at the national level.
Durrës County has the highest rate of abused women. According to INSTAT data, for every 10 women in Durrës, there were 32 raped women, or about 11 women more than the national average. Durrës County is composed of 3 large municipalities: Durrës, Shijak and Krujë.
Vlora district follows Durrës for violence against women. According to INSTAT in the Regional Statistical Yearbook, for every 10 female residents in Vlora, there were 26.6 raped women in 2017.
In the capital, where the possibility of reporting violence is higher, the number of women raped for every 10 female residents was 26.3, about 4 women more than the national average.
Dibra and Kukësi are the counties that have low levels of violence against women with 8.2 and 7.6 women respectively for 10 thousand female residents of these counties.
NOTE: This article is the intellectual property of Monitor.al
