Femicide, criminalized by Parliament
The Romanian Parliament has adopted the law to prevent and combat femicide.
Roxana Vasile, 26.03.2026, 13:50
In the last few years, in Romania, the number of femicide cases brought to public attention by the press has increased worryingly. According to statistics, in 2025, almost every week, at least one woman was killed, most often by her life partner. At the same time, over 11,000 temporary protection orders were issued, but almost 4,000 of them were violated by the aggressors, including because violence against women was insufficiently sanctioned or even transformed into a context of blaming the victims. Experts in the field have repeatedly drawn attention to the fact that responsibility cannot be placed on their shoulders, the state must, on the contrary, provide real protection and information services.
Many NGOs have also called for concrete actions to prevent domestic violence, and their main request was for femicide to be recognized as a distinct form of crime, with femicide being understood as the killing of a woman for gender-related reasons, that is, a crime committed simply because the victim is a woman. ʺ[…] the entire society has witnessed the failure of the authorities to ensure women’s safety. In the femicide cases, there was a history of violence, sometimes known to the authorities or the community, and these femicides could have been preventedʺ the NGOs said in a statement last year. On Wednesday, the Romanian Parliament adopted the law to prevent and combat femicide. The law defines femicide as “the intentional killing of a woman or her death as a result of an intentional crime committed against her.”
Adopted by the Chamber of Deputies as the decision-making body, the law also introduces clear aggravating circumstances, allowing for more severe sanctions for these acts, and strengthens the protection of child victims, obliging the authorities to identify and adopt protective measures for minors affected by these situations. Last but not least, the law aims to educate children to prevent abusive behavior, the law introducing, for the first time, gender equality in the school curriculum.
The Social Democratic MP Silvia Mihalcea has pointed out that the project is about life and responsibility: “The cruel reality, the tragic reality is that the victims of this extreme violence are overwhelmingly women.”
In turn, the Liberal deputy Alina Gorghiu stated that the amounts for the purchase of electronic bracelets are already included in the budget of the Interior Ministry for this year: ʺWe have enough bracelets for victims, we just need to convince them to ask for them, because monitoring the aggressors really saves lives.ʺ
The law is now to be promulgated by the President of Romania. (LS)
