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White Ring: Women need protection from violence from their partners
“Don’t leave women unprotected any longer,” says Patrick Liesching, federal chairman of the White Ring. photo
© Andreas Arnold/dpa
The White Ring is calling for more speed in protecting women from violent partners and ex-partners. The chairman of the aid organization for crime victims writes another incendiary letter.
The chairman of the White Ring, Patrick Liesching, has called on Federal Justice Minister Marco Buschmann (FDP) to enable electronic ankle bracelets for violent criminals – based on the Spanish model.
“Every day an (ex-) partner tries to kill a woman; every third day an (ex-) partner succeeds in killing a woman,” writes the head of the aid organization for crime victims in an incendiary letter to Buschmann, which the German press agency available. “At the White Ring we are convinced that the German state can protect women better than he currently does.”
Appeal from Liesching
Bans on contact and approach do not protect threatened women if compliance with the bans is not monitored. In Spain, significantly fewer women were fatally injured with the introduction of electronic monitoring of the whereabouts of dangerous people (ankle bracelets). In order for this to be possible in Germany, there needs to be a federal regulation within the framework of the Violence Protection Act, says Liesching, who is also head of the public prosecutor’s office in Fulda.
“My urgent appeal to you is therefore: Don’t leave women unprotected any longer,” writes Liesching, who has been campaigning on the issue for more than two years. The technical requirements for this are in place at the Joint Monitoring Center of the States (GÜL) in Hesse. “The only thing missing is the political will.”
The number of victims is increasing
The number of victims of intimate partner violence in Germany has actually increased recently, writes Liesching. “What particularly shocks me is that many of these women had turned to the state for help before the crime.”
In many cases, courts have also issued bans on contact and approach against the violent men, often in expedited proceedings due to the urgency. “Unfortunately, these bans have been and are being ignored thousands of times by the perpetrators, and the trend is increasing,” writes Liesching. “In 2022, there were 6,587 police-recorded violations of the violence protection requirements nationwide, an increase of eleven percent.”