BERLIN, Nov. 20 (Xinhua) -- Women are far more likely to experience violence at the hand of a relationship partner than men in Germany, official figures presented on Tuesday by the country's family minister Franziska Giffey (SPD) show.
According to an analysis of criminal statistics data by Giffey's ministry, 82 out of 100 German victims of domestic violence were female in 2017. In total, 138,893 cases of domestic violence, including stalking, rape and murder, were officially recorded throughout the year.
"More than every third day a woman in Germany is murdered by her partner or ex-partner", Giffey told press. She described the findings as "shocking" because they demonstrated that for many women their own home was a dangerous, fearful place.
The German Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA) first began to additionally assess incidents of coercion, deprivation of liberty, pimping and forced prostitution in its statistics on partnership violence in 2017, after having previously only considered crimes of murder, manslaughter, bodily harm, rape, sexual coercion, threatening and stalking. A total of 6,989 victims were registered in the newly-created categories last year.
Without the change of definition, the total number of victims would have declined slightly by 0.8 percent compared to 2016. Germany witnessed a significant rise in domestic violence (plus 9.3) between 2013 and 2016 and cases of bodily harm in particular. For the latter subcategory, the number of recorded victims was still more than ten percent higher in 2017 compared to four years earlier.
"Domestic violence is present across all groups," said Giffey. Although alcohol, money and psychological issues increased the risk thereof, well-off families were affected as well.
The most common form of domestic violence recorded in 2017 was slight assault, at 61 percent, which include cases of manslaughter. A total of 147 women and 34 men in Germany were killed by their partner or ex-partner during the measurement period.
Notably, the incidents recorded by the BKA are likely to understate the full scale of the problem as criminological experts believe that the "dark figure" of unrecorded cases is significantly higher. Giffey highlighted that only every fifth victim was estimated to seek help in a case of domestic violence.
In order to alleviate the issue, the family minister urged policymakers to expand assistance services offered by women's shelters. Giffey lamented that a current level of 350 women's shelters and 600 advisory services which were supporting 30,000 women per year were "not sufficient".
The German government has previously promised to make 35 million euros (39.9 million U.S. dollars) in funding available to state and communal authorities to help boost the provision related structures under a policy initiative to curb violence against women in 2020.
