Editorial Ta Nea: An urgent wake-up call

The pattern has become commonplace.

A woman wants to separate from her partner and he cannot tolerate that and murders her.

Within a time span of 48 hours, two more women were added to this macabre list of victims, and a 17-year-old girl was found murdered, with her partner being the prime suspect.

Last year in our country, there were 17 femicides and thousands of reports to authorities of domestic violence.

Greece continues to have the tragic distinction of being in the last place in the EU’s gender equality index.

Gender-based violence always existed, but it was not recorded.

When one is confronted very frequently with the final stage of gender-based violence, murder, it is glaringly obvious that the state has a duty to adopt a more intensive and focused response in the areas of prevention, the creation of specialised facilities, the development of protocols, and the continuing education of authorities.
This issue cannot be allowed to remain in the domain of political clashes and partisan skirmishes.

Society must stop feigning ignorance and looking the other way.

We must all assume our responsibilities, because the scourge of gender-based violence did not develop in a neutral environment.

The culture of a putative male “pride” that views women as property did not come out of the blue.

All these events are somehow, somewhere cultivated and are concealed in seemingly harmless, small, daily habits and deeply rooted mores.

Let us wake up, and let us demand that this enormous problem be tackled urgently and effectively.

Let us teach our children to be better than we are, or at least to avoid our mistakes.