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The majority of the violence is still committed by men (symbol image)
Photo: dolgachov via www.imago-images.d / dolgachov / IMAGO
The number of reported acts of violence among couples and ex-partners has fallen slightly in the past year.
In 2021, the authorities registered 143,016 cases nationwide in which a current or former partner used violence or attempted it - a decrease of 2.5 percent compared to the first corona year 2020. This is evident from the situation report on partnership violence from the Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA).
Federal Interior Minister Nancy Faeser (SPD) pointed out that the overall trend was different: in the years before 2021, the number of victims had grown steadily, said Faeser.
The numbers recorded in the statistics would only show the so-called bright field, i.e. the number of cases reported.
The dark field is much larger.
Federal Family Minister Lisa Paus (Greens) stated that it can be assumed that two-thirds of female victims are currently not going to the police.
As can be seen from the data published by the Federal Criminal Police Office on Thursday, a total of 143,604 victims were involved in the cases mentioned - a decrease of three percent compared to the previous year.
80.3 percent of those affected by intimate partner violence were women.
Most of the cases involved intentional simple bodily harm (59.6 percent).
Overall, the assaults ended fatally for 127 people (113 women and 14 men).
As in previous years, the majority of the violence is still committed by men (78.8 percent).
However, the proportion of female suspects has increased slightly in recent years - to 21.2 percent (2020: 20.6 percent).
Online threats are on the rise
Of a total of 118,148 suspects recorded, 65.6 percent were German nationals.
Among the non-German suspects, Turkish nationals were the most common with a share of 5.4 percent.
The number of crimes committed on the Internet has increased slightly: for example, the proportion of threats to partners or ex-partners on the Internet was 6.6 percent in 2021 - in 2020 it was still 4.8 percent.
The police also attribute this to the effects of the law on combating right-wing extremism and hate crime.
The law, which came into force in 2021, stipulates, among other things, that threats and insults on the Internet must be reported to the BKA by the providers of social networks.
bbr/dpa