Femicide and Gender-based Violence in the Family: A Review of Systemic Action in Israel
In recent years, over 20 women have been murdered in Israel each year, many of them by the men who were closest to them. From September to November 2018 alone, six women were murdered, bringing the issue to the national agenda and impressively mobilizing a variety of stakeholders seeking broad action.
In the wake of the public outcry, hundreds of women took part in protests across the country on October 18; in November, the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women was marked more intensively; and on December 4, a women's strike was held during which dozens of companies and authorities were shut down for 24 minutes, commemorating the 24 victims murdered up to that date in 2018 (two more women were murdered in the following weeks, bringing the total number of women murdered in 2018 to 26) .
All these events involved women and organizations from all corners of Israeli society as well as broad organizing of civil society and social activists.
Sheatufim is a non-profit organization specializing in cross-sectoral dialogue and collaborative social impact approaches to solving complex social problems. The organization has been asked to help brainstorm possible courses of action to minimize the number of female murder victims and reduce the level of violence against women in Israel, particularly to leverage mobilization and raise consciousness in the public arena.
As a first step, an initial investigation of the issue and mapping of the field were carried out. The findings are presented in the current document.
The main purpose of this report is to review and map the systemic actions in combatting violence against women in the family in Israel, and to offer an initial impression of such systemic measures elsewhere in the world.