Fatal intimate partner violence against women in Portugal: A forensic medical national study

Abstract

Intimate partner violence (IPV) is an important cause of women's health and socio-familial severe problems, the most extreme being the victims' homicide. This is the first nationwide Portuguese autopsy-based and judicial-proven study about female intimate partner homicide.At least 62 women over 15 years old were killed by current or former men-intimate partners, corresponding to an IPV-related female mortality rate of 0.44/100.000 women; intimate partner violence was the reason of homicide in 60.8% of all autopsied women.The typical Portuguese victim showed to be a young adult woman, employed, killed by a current husband in a long-term relationship, usually with children in common and with a history of previous IPV. The typical Portuguese perpetrator showed to be a man older than the victim, employed, owning a firearm and without criminal records. At the time of the fatal event 59.7% of the relationships were current. In 57.9% of the former relationships women were killed during the 1st year after its terminus. Near half of the perpetrators attempted or committed suicide afterwards. Most women were killed by gunshot wounds (45.2%), especially in the thorax (48.4%), with multiple fatal injuries; 56.5% also presented non-fatal injuries.The detection of prior IPV and the risk evaluation seems to be fundamental to decrease these fatal outcomes, but also, the prevention of perpetrators' alcohol abuse and carrying weapons. This work emphasizes the need to deepen the research on this issue, aiming to contribute to prevent both fatal and non-fatal IPV-related cases.

Intimate partner violence against women in Spain: A medico-legal and criminological study

“…The remainder cases (n= 21, 7.4%) were attended at outpatient services. Medical assistance for IPV events mostly occurred at night (n= 109, 38.5% of cases) and in the afternoon (n = 81, 28.6%), especially during weekends (n= 107, 48.5%), which is in accordance with previous data 38,64 . This may be related to social customs including alcohol and drug consumption during the weekends 38,79 .…”

“…Alcohol or drugs were involved in the incident in 42.4% (n= 247) of cases. Most of abusive incidents were witnessed (n= 355, 61%), which is similar to other studies64 .Furthermore, an important number of violent events (n= 165, 28.3%) occurred in presence of minors, which is in agreement with previous research 65,66 . These children must be considered potential targets of protection and prevention measures because exposure to IPV during childhood increases the risk of being injured, of suffering serious psychological disturbance and also of becoming perpetrators or victims of that situations of IPV against women also affect children who are considered direct or indirect victims of this violence.…”

Severe intimate partner violence affecting both young and elderly patients of both sexes

“…The absence of gunshot wounds in our cohort is typical for Finland [17]. In several other countries including the United States, firearms represent the most commonly used weapon in homicides, while a Portuguese study found that firearms most commonly cause IPV fatalities [18,19]. In Finland, however, firearm-related violence is rare; homicides occur in 40 % of cases through the use of sharp instruments, and more often when the perpetrator is female [16,17].…”

Homicidios en la Pareja: Explorando las Diferencias entre Agresores Inmigrantes y Españoles

“…Con relación a los factores de riesgo, la violencia previa contra la víctima se considera el principal, razón por la cual una parte muy importante de las víctimas de homicidio habían sufrido previamente episodios de violencia (Campbell et al, 2003;Campbell, Glass, Sharps, Laughon y Bloom, 2007;Garcia et al, 2007;Pereira et al, 2013). Así, muchos autores señalan cómo los IPH son muchas veces una consecuencia extrema y no planificada de las relaciones abusivas previas (Cerezo, 1998;Norman y Bradshaw, 2013;Wilson y Daly, 1993).…”

“…Como señalan diferentes autores, la interacción entre la violencia de género y la inmigración es una línea de investigación emergente y resulta recomendable profundizar en su estudio (Menjívar y Salcido, 2002;Raj y Silverman, 2002;Vives-Cases et al, 2009). Si bien existe una amplia literatura sobre la violencia en la pareja, el fenómeno del homicidio del compañero sentimental o intimate partner homicide (en adelante IPH) no ha recibido la misma atención por la comunidad científica internacional (Aldridge y Browne, 2003;Dobash, Dobash y Cavanagh, 2009;Hoyle, 2008;Pereira et al, 2013), sucediendo esto también en el caso específico de la población inmigrante. Así mismo, a pesar de la tendencia actual por parte de los investigadores a identificar los factores de riesgo del IPH (Aldridge y Browne, 2003;McFarlane et al, 1999), éstos no se han analizado de forma exclusiva en parejas inmigrantes (Messing, Amanor-Boadu, Cavanaugh, Glass y Campbell 2013).…”