“Hard but fair”: “Why do women have to go to a women’s shelter and not perpetrators to a perpetrator’s house?” asks the activist

It’s a topic that women are reluctant to talk about in public. This is how presenter Louis Klamroth opens his show. They would expect too much hostility online afterwards. Violence against women continues to rise every year: last year, 360 women and girls were victims of femicide, and every three minutes a woman experiences domestic violence. What can be done about it – and where are the weak points in politics?

Green Party politician Ricarda Lang and CSU Bundestag member Dorothee Bär discussed this on Monday evening. Also invited were the moderator Collien Ulmen-Fernandes, the lawyer and member of the German Ethics Council Frauke Rostalski, and the author and ambassador for the UN #HeForShe campaign, Fikri Anıl Altıntaş. Romy Stangl, women’s rights activist with the “One Billion Rising” association, reported on her own experiences with domestic violence.

Women’s rights activist: “We haven’t just known the figures on domestic violence since today”

Romy Stangl had her first experiences with violence in her parents’ house. As a child, her father beat her up and the rest of the family did nothing. Although she resolved back then that she would never experience violence in her life again, her husband later became emotionally and physically violent towards her. After the birth of her child, he locks her up and tries to rape her. “At one point he hit me in the face with his fist and looked at me and said, ‘Now I remind you of your father.'”

At that moment Romy Stangl would have realized that she had to free herself from this marriage. Shortly afterwards she goes to a women’s shelter with her son. Today, 16 years later, Stangl stands up for women who have experienced something similar and speaks publicly about it: “Because it is important to show where violence starts – not at the first blow, but much earlier.” It still prevails a stigma in society and in the private environment of women who are victims of domestic violence.

Stangl was lucky, she said, that she got to a women’s shelter so quickly. Most women don’t feel that way. There is a lack of around 13,000 women’s shelter places in Germany. Stangl criticized the two politicians in the group: “Your input is appreciated, but we haven’t just known what the numbers are since today.” It is clear from debates that politicians do not consider it important to invest in the topic, Stangl continued. Not enough is being done to prevent violence. Stangl gave the example of France here. More resources would be allocated to this there. In general, one has to question: “Why does a woman have to go to a women’s shelter, why doesn’t a perpetrator go to a perpetrator’s house?”

Ricarda Lang with a swipe at Lindner: No longer interested in the “marshalling yard”

Ricarda Lang agreed with Stangl and cited the Violence Protection Act, which is intended to guarantee every woman the right to protection from violence in the future. It will soon be discussed in the Bundestag. Lang admitted that there was a lack of political will to finance women’s shelters and could not resist taking a swipe at the former finance minister: “It was the case with Christian Linder that they point to the states and say that it is their responsibility .”

It is also a scandal that women have to pay for their places in women’s shelters in some federal states, said Lang. Many people are financially dependent on their partner, so this should be abolished.

Lang admitted that it is also due to the traffic light coalition that the Violence Protection Act is only now being passed. But she no longer feels like going to “this marshalling yard”. “You have to ask Ms. Doro Bär whether the draft law will be successful.” Her party colleagues like Friedrich Merz are committed to protecting women: “But in the end, no woman is protected by a nice speech.”

Bear extends his hand to Lang: “Let a few boys compete against each other.”

Dorothee Bär initially dismissed the question of who was to blame for the lack of women’s shelter places. The Union has drawn up an action plan that also includes “post-partner violence”: This includes putting an ankle bracelet on perpetrators with which their victims can track their location in order to protect themselves.

Bär later agreed to the party-political jibes: she had often “reached out her hand” to Federal Family Minister Lisa Paus to submit her suggestions for the law. “Unfortunately she didn’t want to speak.” Bär said it was important to want to work together on this law because “we agree on the goal.” Ricarda Lang was open to this: she wanted to get the law passed before the federal election; that was “more important than an election campaign”. Dorothee Bär added: “Let a few boys compete against each other, but I think we can work together a little more.”

The two politicians are no strangers to this topic: Dorothee Bär has been active in women’s politics for years, Ricarda Lang’s mother even worked in a women’s shelter until she lost her job due to a lack of funding. Both therefore had the necessary expertise for the discussion about political measures. However, they were mostly united in their demands that politicians should do more for women.

The question arises as to why no male politician had to answer for the mistakes in women’s policy, as Ricarda Lang herself acknowledged in the program that violence against women is often dismissed as a “women’s issue”.

Not all aspects were examined

The show still managed to cover a wide range of topics: from hatred on the internet to images of masculinity in the right-wing extremist scene. Some topics were only touched on in passing: Dorothee Bär stated that misogynistic ideas were also promoted by the red light district in Germany, as foreign women in particular are often forced into prostitution. “As long as we live in a country where it is legal to rape women for money every day on the streets or in brothels or whorehouses, nothing will change,” said Bär. She couldn’t get into a conversation with Lisa Paus about this topic either

Ricarda Lang managed to answer evasively: You can’t generalize like that, but you certainly have to go more into the “dark fields”. With that the topic was ticked off. The author Fikri Anıl Altıntaş also put forward the thesis that marginalized women are being neglected by the law – how exactly does the show owe it to the viewer. So it remains desirable that the topic would not only be discussed once a year.