At least 261 women have been victims of femicide in Algeria since 2019, half of whom were mothers and 16 were pregnant at the time of their assassinations, according to a report presented on Saturday near Algiers. Since “January 1, 2023, 33 women have been killed, and between 2019 and 2022, 228 women have been murdered,” indicated Wiame Awras, member of the “Féminicides Algérie” collective, presenting this non-exhaustive report, based mainly on cases mentioned by the local press.
From 2019 to 2022, a group of women analyzed feminicides in Algeria, recorded in this report which concludes that “at least one woman is murdered” every week. Most of the victims were stabbed, had their throats cut or were killed by firearms, according to the study, which mentions cases of women being burned alive.
“Their common point is that they are targeted because they are women,” in a country where patriarchy reigns and where society remains very conservative, said Wiame Awras, whose collective has had direct contact with certain families. The reasons given by the murderers included jealousy, “supposed honor killings” and mental disorders.
A judicial system that is too lax
“Nearly 80% of feminicides are committed by a member of the victim’s family,” noted Wiame Awras, specifying that in 61% of cases it is the spouse, some of whom are “police officers or soldiers who murdered their wives with their service weapons.” Among the perpetrators, the report also identified many young people who killed their mothers. Sometimes an entire family becomes complicit in an assassination, as was the case for “Nihal, 19 years old, killed in March 2022 by relatives who invoked an honor killing because she was pregnant outside of marriage”, according to the report.
The collective denounced shortcomings in the Algerian judicial system, believing that it does not sufficiently protect women against this type of violence and sanctions certain perpetrators of feminicide too lightly. In four years, 13 death sentences have been handed down in Algeria, all commuted to life imprisonment under a moratorium on the death penalty in the country in force since 1993.