No Decrease in Femicide in the Netherlands in 15 Years

The number of women killed by a partner or ex-partner in the Netherlands has not gone down in 15 years, according to new figures from Statistics Netherlands (CBS). On average, 2.7 women per million are killed each year by their partner or former partner, and this rate has stayed roughly the same since 2010.

Most of the victims are women between 20 and 40 years old. Femicide, the killing of a woman because of her gender, often by a partner or ex, remains a persistent form of deadly domestic violence.

CBS data show that femicide by a partner or ex-partner affects women in different life situations, but some groups are at higher risk. In relative terms, divorced women face the greatest danger, with 5.6 victims per million, more than double the rate among married women.

The breakdown by marital status (per million women) is:

Age is also a strong factor. Over the past 15 years, the risk is highest for women aged 20–39, at 4.5 victims per million. For women aged 40–59, the rate is 3.5 per million, and for women 60 and older, it drops to 1.6 per million. Among girls and young women under 20, the figure is 0.4 per million.

While femicide by partners has not decreased, there has been some progress in other areas. The number of women killed by someone other than a partner or ex has gone down. There are also fewer cases in which the perpetrator is unknown.

This means that, even as some forms of deadly violence against women have fallen, killings by partners and ex-partners remain stubbornly stable. Campaigners and experts see this as a sign that current policies are not yet effective enough in tackling intimate partner violence.

The new figures follow a recent review by GREVIO, the Council of Europe body that monitors the Istanbul Convention on preventing and combating violence against women. In its latest report on the Netherlands, GREVIO warned that there are too few shelters for women fleeing violent partners and that protection is still often inadequate.

According to GREVIO, Dutch authorities and services still frequently treat domestic violence as a “conflict” between two people, rather than as a pattern of control and abuse. Custody disputes are often sent to mediation, which, the experts say, does not properly address the power imbalance between an abuser and a victim.

The group concluded that the Netherlands is not fully meeting its obligations under the Istanbul Convention when it comes to protecting women and tackling domestic violence.

Compared to other European countries, the Netherlands is in the middle group when it comes to partner femicide. Between 2017 and 2023, the Dutch rate was 2.6 women per million killed by a partner or ex-partner, according to CBS and Eurostat. That is lower than in countries such as Finland and Lithuania, but higher than in Slovakia, which has the lowest reported rate.

Being in the European middle does not change the fact that, in the Netherlands, around one woman every eight days is killed in a case of murder or manslaughter, and many of these deaths involve partners or ex-partners.

The combination of stable femicide rates, shortage of shelters, and critical international reviews is likely to increase pressure on Dutch policymakers. Experts and advocacy groups are calling for:

Despite action plans like “Stop Femicide!” and broader national strategies on violence against women, the latest CBS figures show that the most extreme form of such violence has not yet been reduced.