ATHENS — One woman was suffocated, her body found next to her baby. Another was pushed off a rock. Another victim was stabbed 23 consecutive times.
The shocking killings and a sharp rise in domestic violence cases in Greece over the past year have brought partner-on-partner violence to the forefront in a country where such abuse is often referred to but not discussed.
“For decades, the Greek justice system showed leniency to abusers citing ‘crimes of passion,’” Clio Papapantoleon, a prominent lawyer, said. She notes that she is now receiving an increase in calls from domestic violence victims.
The violence has prompted authorities to intervene, including the decision to launch a national video campaign in November to urge women to leave abusers. They also offer free legal advice and emotional support. The video flashes apologies — “I didn’t mean it,” “My baby,” “I’m sorry” — in knife-shaped blocks of text. Police have set up special offices to handle domestic abuse cases.
Officials and activists agree that more must be done to stop women from dying or being left to suffer silently for many years. This includes training police officers, who critics claim sometimes fail to spot warning signs. A woman was killed in a shocking case that shocked the nation. This happened after police failed, weeks earlier, to respond to a call from a concerned neighbor.
The rise in domestic abuse mirrors increases elsewhere that, in part, appear to be a side effect of Covid lockdowns, prompting the United Nations to speak of a “shadow pandemic.” Pope Francis has also addressed the issue, denouncing the increase in domestic violence worldwide as “almost satanic.”
The police in Greece recorded domestic violence against 5,705 women during the first ten months of last year. This is nearly 60% more than the same period in 2020. While some of the increase may be due to more women speaking out, it does not reduce the severity of the abuse.
The number of women who were killed in incidents of domestic violence was up, too — to 16 in the first 10 months of 2021, from nine for the whole of 2020.
The brutality of the murders in Greece last year shocked the nation and dominated media coverage. In some cases, it even made international headlines.
Vasiliki Petousi is a sociologist and head of gender research at University of Crete. He said that violence has fueled discussion on a topic that was until recently almost taboo in Greece.
“The significance of the family in Greece, and its unity, has typically spurred many women, and often their relatives, to conceal their abuse,” Ms. Petousi said. Ms. Petousi attributed the increase in media coverage and public awareness to the fact that more women are speaking up. Ms. Petousi said that the public disclosure of sexual assault allegations against a sailing federation official by Sofia Bekatorou, Olympic sailing champion, prompted broader discussions about abuse in general.
Caroline Crouch’s death in May, while her baby was nearby, was another pivotal moment. Charalambos Anagnostopoulos her husband, a Greek helicopter pilot and pilot, admitted to her suffocating her. He is currently awaiting trial for murder.
Katerina Kolstaki, a psychologist working at a counseling centre in Athens as part of a national network that includes 43 centers, stated that more victims had come forward because of the gravity of the violence. “Women were so scared that they’d be next that they started talking,” she said.
The centers and a 24-hour telephone line have been busy. The centers received 5,491 visits in 2021, an increase of 4,925 from the previous year. The phone line received 6,797 calls in 2021, an increase of 4,619 from 2019.
“The figures show the impact of the pandemic on abuse,” said Maria Syrengela, the Greek deputy labor minister in charge of gender equality. “The violence has certainly increased, but so have appeals for support as women listened, learned and trusted that there are facilities to visit and experts to listen to them.”
In the same month that the government began its video campaign, the Greek Supreme Court prosecutor, Vasilis Pliotas, called for cases of domestic violence to be fast-tracked, referring to “extreme, inconceivable, unrestrained, abhorrent and exceptionally harsh homicides that have stunned society.”
The Greek police plan to open additional domestic abuse offices. In the last two years, 73 offices were established across the country to monitor such cases. In addition, six frontline units, with personnel specially trained to support victims, opened in city precincts at the end of last year — five in Athens and one in Thessaloniki.
Takis Theodorikakos, the Greek minister of public order, stated this week that more frontline units will be opened to address the problem due to the recent increase in cases.
Despite all the attention given to domestic violence, there have been instances of police officers mishandling abuse cases. Two police officers were fired in July after failing to respond to a call from a woman reporting domestic violence against another woman in her apartment block, Athens suburb Dafni. The call had been flagged by the emergency service as “high priority,” but the two officers who went to the scene did not intervene.
Three weeks later, the victim of abuse was stabbed to her death. The police stated that her husband had confessed to the crime and was currently in custody.
Ms. Papapantoleon, a lawyer, stated that a ingrained view by the police that domestic violence was not always serious had prevented systematic action. She stated that officers need more training.
Giorgos Kalliakmanis is the head of the police union in southeastern Athens. He said that officers were taught to take domestic violence seriously, but that they had to be careful about making too many demands and not having enough training.
“Officers are overworked, dealing with cases ranging from checks on Covid measures to thefts,” he said. “If 90 percent of domestic cases they’ve responded to in the past are simple arguments, they might not give enough weight to the more serious incidents.”
He called the actions taken in the Dafni killing an “isolated incident,” noting that the officers sent to the scene “did not evaluate it properly and should have handled it differently.”
He said that the force is working to improve its officers’ ability to respond to domestic violence cases and has started specialized training courses with the assistance of psychologists as well as prosecutors at the end of last year.
The justice system has also been criticised. People convicted of abuse sometimes receive lenient sentences, either because they claim to be provoked or because there are no previous convictions. Ms. Papapantoleon stated that there could be limits on the amount of sentences that could be reduced due to such mitigating circumstances.
The political opposition, notably the leftist Syriza party, have proposed that the term femicide be included in Greece’s criminal code as a separate offense carrying heavier punishment.
European officials have also taken a similar initiative. In December, the European Commission laid out rules to tackle hate crimes, including gender-based violence, after calls by European Parliament members in September for those offenses to be categorized as a “particularly serious crime.”
Ms. Syrengela, minister, stated that Greece aimed at doing more to combat abuse.
An “action plan for sexual equality” unveiled in December includes initiatives aimed at curbing domestic violence, including more public awareness drives and bolstering the participation of women in decision-making roles in the labor market and elsewhere.
Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis said that the plan would tackle Greece’s “social ailments,” including violence against women.
“There is a huge silent majority that are still not speaking out,” said Ms. Petousi, the professor, who called for more counseling centers and other practical measures to encourage victims of violence to come forward. “There is much, much, much more to be done.”
Source: NY Times