Safe Sweden faces up to wave of women's killings

 

Six women have been killed in just five weeks in Sweden, reigniting debates about domestic violence in a country usually praised for its gender equality.

The deaths span three regions and three generations, but in almost all cases there has been a common thread: the arrest of a man they had had a close relationship with.

Two of the killings took place in broad daylight: one in a rural town centre in the south of the country, another at a train and bus station in Linkoping, a university city south of the capital.

In Flemingsberg, a low-income Stockholm suburb packed with tower blocks clad in primary colours, a woman was stabbed in the apartment she shared with four young children. The man arrested on suspicion of her murder is someone she reportedly knew well.

'I'm not so safe'

"I think it has to be brought up to the surface more, this violence against women, because it's not OK," says Kristian Jansson, 51, who's out shopping in Flemingsberg with his 18-year-old daughter Emma-Louise

 

 

The teenager says the recent killings have amplified wider worries about women's safety in the area, where she rarely goes out alone. "I am not so safe... Because there's so [many] people that kill around here."

The recent wave of killings comes amidst growing concerns about violence towards women in Sweden, which has long held a reputation as one of the world's safest and most gender-equal countries.

In 2020, 16,461 assault cases were reported against women in a close relationship in Sweden. That is a 15.4% rise on the 2019 figure of 14,261, reported by the National Council for Crime Prevention.

'Feminist government'

Sweden's Gender Equality Minister, Marta Stenevi, says she is "both appalled and upset" by the latest violence, but not surprised. "We have in many ways come quite far in gender equality in Sweden, but we still live with the structures in society that suppress women," she says. 

 

 

 

Imported values'

One major political sticking point is whether the recent violence should be connected to Sweden's recent wave of immigration. Swedish police don't register criminal suspects according to ethnicity, but prosecutors say several of the men facing trial have non-Swedish backgrounds, and that's been used as ammunition by anti-immigration parties.

In a televised party leader debate last week, the leader of the nationalist Sweden Democrats Jimmie Akesson called for a crackdown on what he described as "imported values" that sanction violence against women.

Sweden's Gender Equality Minister Marta Stenevi says that Sweden does have a problem with so-called "honour crimes", which are committed to protect or defend the supposed reputation of a family or extended community. But she believes labelling violence towards women as an "immigrant issue" is "really, really diminishing the problem", describing violence against women as "deeply, deeply rooted" throughout Swedish society.

 

 

Is the pandemic a factor?

Jenny Westerstrand at Roks believes that at least some of the latest violence may be connected to the pandemic. Sweden may have avoided formal lockdowns, but she says the spread of coronavirus has forced women of all backgrounds to spend more time at home.

 

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-56977771