What women are killed for: six real stories that happened in one day
'21.12.2018'
Source: Air force
As follows from a report published by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), every day around the world, 137 women are killed at the hands of their loved ones and relatives. More than half of the 87 women killed in 2017 fell victim to those closest to them. Of these, about 30 thousand died at the hands of a partner - husband or cohabitant - and another 20 thousand were killed by relatives. The place of murder of women is most often the home.
The data collected by the UN Office on Drugs and Crime, suggests that for men the probability of dying as a result of premeditated murder is four times higher than for a woman, writes Air force.
The UN indicates that around the world in 8 out of 10 cases of murder are men. At the same time, the same report says that more than 80% of victims of crimes committed by family members against relatives are women. “Violence from loved ones continues to disproportionately affect women,” says the UN report.
47 women in 21 country in one day
The UN report summarizes the homicide statistics for 2017 year obtained from government sources. The number of gender-based killings of women and girls was derived based on the criteria for killings committed by relatives or close friends.
After that, the creators of the BBC's special project “100 Women”, together with the BBC Monitoring Service, decided to find out more about the real stories of women who are hidden behind the statistics.
As a result, all the articles in the world press concerning the murders of women for 1 October 2018 were tracked. BBC journalists working in different regions of the world counted 47 with such reports of women killed in the 21 country, most likely for a gender reason. Most of these killings are still under investigation.
Here are just six such cases. Initially they were reported in the local press. The BBC received official confirmation of the facts presented here.
Judith Chesang, 22, Kenya
On Monday, 1 in October, Judith Chesang and her sister Nancy harvested sorghum in the field. Judith, a mother of three children, recently divorced her husband Laban Kamuren and decided to return to the parent village in the north of the country.
Shortly after the sisters began harvesting, Kamuren arrived at the family farm, attacked the former wife and killed her. According to local police, after that, the Kamuren was killed by local residents.
A UN report says that in Africa women are most at risk of killing by a relative or relative. In total, 100 has thousands of 3,1 deaths. And in terms of the total number of women killed by relatives and friends, Asia leads: there, in 2017, 20 killed thousands of women.
Neha Sharad Choduri, 18 years, India
Neha Sharad Choduri probably died in a so-called “honor killing” on the day she turned 18. She celebrated her birthday with her boyfriend.
Police confirmed the BBC that the girl's parents were against this relationship. Now parents and another relative are accused of killing a girl that evening, committed right in the parent's house.
The investigation continues, and the three main suspects remain in custody pending trial. A lawyer representing the interests of Neha’s parents and relatives told the BBC that the suspects were not going to admit their guilt.
Hundreds of women die every year just because they fall in love or get married against the wishes of their families. However, there are no exact statistics for “honor killings”, since such crimes are often not recorded or reported.
Zeinab Sekaanwan, 24 of the Year, Iran
Zeinab Sekaanvan was executed in Iran for the murder of her husband. Zeinab was born in north-western Iran to a poor Kurdish family that held conservative views. As a young girl, she ran away from family to get married and find a better life.
But she was unlucky: according to the international human rights organization, her husband abused Zeynab and refused to give her a divorce. At the same time, the police ignored all her complaints of beatings. Zeinab was arrested for killing her husband when she was 17 years old.
Amnesty International claims that she was tortured to confess to the murder of her husband, that she was beaten by the police and that her trial was not fair.
The UNODC report suggests that women who decided to kill their partner were often subjected to prolonged physical abuse. The report also states that male killers often cite the feeling of ownership, jealousy and fear of being abandoned.
It seems that this is exactly what happened with the Brazilian couple: a man and a woman lived together for many years and were found dead on the same day that Zeinab was executed.
Sandra Lucia Ammer Maura, 39 years, Brazil
Sandra Lucia Ammer Maura married Augusta Aguire Ribeira in 16 years of age and lived with him for almost a quarter of a century. Five months after the divorce, he killed her.
Police town Zhardim Takuari confirmed the BBC Brazilian service that the woman died from a knife in the neck. Investigators found on her husband's mobile phone a video of the confession in this murder. Augusta said that Lucia began dating another man, and he regarded it as a betrayal.
He also boasted on video that he would not be arrested, because together they would "go to the Creator." Augustu hanged himself in the bedroom of their common home. He really escaped arrest.
Sandra's case illustrates the so-called form of “murder-suicide”, in which a person kills one or more victims and then suicides himself.
Marie-Amelie Vaya, 36 years, France
Marie-Amelie was stabbed to death by her husband, Sebastien Vaya. They broke up after 4 years of marriage. He attacked the woman with a knife, after which he voluntarily surrendered to the police. A few days later he was cut in jail.
Marie-Ameli’s neighbors brought bundles of flowers to the doors of a lingerie store on Bisha Street, which she owned, and marched in memory of the deceased.
The murder of Marie-Amelie Vails occurred on the very day when the French government announced new plans to combat domestic violence.
Elena Verba, 29 years, Russia
Elena's happy family life ended in the summer of 2017. Her husband, Sergei, a former employee of the Federal Drug Control Service, decided that she began to change him, called her into the forest under the pretext of picking mushrooms, and there attacked her with a knife, demanding confessions.
Elena was able to escape and later told the police about this attack, but the law enforcement officers held an educational conversation with her husband and limited themselves to this.
Elena wanted to get a divorce, but could not do it: according to lawyers, her husband intimidated her and threatened that the divorce would cost her dearly. At the same time, Sergei did not stop suspecting his wife and eventually attacked her in a fit of jealousy and in front of his seven-year-old son inflicted 28 with knife wounds.
When is killing a woman worth seeing?
To acquaint you with these stories of women killed on gender grounds, a whole network of BBC employees carefully watched TV shows, social networks, print media, listened to radio around the world.
They found that a total of October 1 of this year received 47 reports of murders of women. The BBC tells only about a small part of them: many cases remained unconfirmed, some crimes against women were not officially recorded, sometimes the motives were not clear or the perpetrators were not identified.
The UNODC report concludes that a large proportion of crimes against women fall out of the sight of law enforcement agencies: they are either not reported, or the police do not investigate these crimes as specifically targeted at women.
“Our study is designed to remind not only of the women we know about, but also of those cases that were not reported by the police or the media,” says Mariam Azver, an employee of the BBC Monitoring Service, whose task was to summarize the collected data. ...
“The stories of these women were never published, or they could not be verified, or the police did not investigate these deaths. So we can only wonder: when is the murder of a woman considered important enough to be covered in the newspapers? ”
