Algeria: Alarming figures for violence against women, leading to feminicide
Violence against women in Algeria is a major concern for international human rights organizations. According to statistics from the World Health Organization (WHO), more than 50% of Algerian women have been victims of physical, sexual or psychological violence in their lifetime.
In Algeria, persistent violence against women is unfortunately part of the daily life of the Algerian. Husbands are often the perpetrators of this violence. Trivialized or even ignored, this violence often leads to irreparable, such as feminicides that are becoming increasingly alarming in Algeria.
Regarding femicides, there are no official figures updated recently for Algeria. However, according to statistics from 2016 by the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Algeria had one of the highest rates of femicides in North Africa and the Middle East.
Despite efforts to raise awareness, the numbers are still alarming, with at least one woman murdered every week in 2023. Most of the victims were killed by relatives and family members. The reasons often mentioned by the murderers are jealousy, the famous honor crimes and mental disorders.
Among the authors, reports have identified many young people who have killed their mothers. Sometimes an entire family is complicit in an assassination, as was the case for «Nihal, 19, killed in March 2022 by relatives who invoked a crime of honor because she was pregnant outside marriage».
Most of the victims were stabbed, slit their throats or killed with a firearm, according to a study that also mentions cases of women burned alive.
Several associations denounce the shortcomings of Algerian justice.
In four years, 13 death sentences have been handed down in Algeria, all commuted to life imprisonment.
