Femicide
The killing of women — an analytical concept, not a separate offence in Danish law
Femicide denotes the killing of women, typically committed by a current or former partner, and is in many contexts regarded as an extreme form of gender-based violence — but the concept does not constitute a separate criminal category under Danish law. Danish law has no distinct provision for femicide. Intentional homicide is prosecuted under the Danish Penal Code (straffeloven) § 237 on manslaughter, regardless of the victim's sex and regardless of the nature of the motive. Where there is no intent to kill, but serious violence has resulted in death, the penalty under straffeloven § 246 may rise to imprisonment for 10 years.
The term derives from the international concept of 'femicide', used in criminological and political contexts to describe and analyse patterns in the killing of women with a gender-based motive. European institutions, including the European Institute for Gender Equality (EIGE), use the concept in statistical and comparative studies across EU countries, including Denmark.
Because Danish criminal legislation does not formally distinguish between killings on the basis of the victim's sex, data on femicide in Denmark is collected and categorised primarily through administrative registers and research-based surveys rather than through a separate legal definition. This means that the scale of femicide in Denmark is measured analytically rather than legally.
Posts Tagged “Femicide”
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