ATHENS – The harassment, stalking, bullying, intimidation, assaulting, raping and killing of women – especially by their partners or husbands – isn’t news in Greece anymore because it happens so often but one case has riveted attention on the problem.

It happened the night of April 1 when 28-year-old Kyriaki Griva was stabbed to death outside a police station where she had gone to seek help from her ex-boyfriend who killed her within sight of where she was refused help.

Having a male friend escorting her didn’t save her as the man accused of killing her rushed up from behind, surveillance footage showed, the savagery and brazenness of the murder shocking a country inured to violence against women.

In a feature, Al Jazeera highlighted how the killing illustrated a problem that no government has been able to solve despite the ruling New Democracy administration putting measures in place to protect women.

Police officials at the station were disciplined for failing to safeguard Griva, including a hotline operator she called outside the station asking for a police car to take her home only to be told, “Lady, police cars aren’t taxis.”

She had told police the boyfriend was lurking outside her home but didn’t know he had followed her to the station and wasn’t deterred by her being there to kill her with a number of people also around.

She was the fifth woman to be killed by an ex or partner this year in Greece and had filed complaints against her former boyfriend but this time didn’t so so, no reason given why, although she felt enough fear to go to the police station.

“While her reasoning is not clear, victims of domestic violence often choose not to make formal complaints because they are terrified of repercussions, worry the process may be triggering and have little faith in agencies that are meant to provide security,” the news site said.

The 39-year-old suspect was imprisoned awaiting trial; he is reportedly being monitored in a psychiatric ward, the case another in a lone line that repeatedly brings vows to protect women but have still failed.

ANOTHER PROBE PROMISE

Civil Protection Michalis Chrisochoidis promised an in-depth investigation – that’s the usual response in Greece and frequently results in nothing happening – and supported the term femicide within the Greek penal code.

That’s up to him to do so but despite saying he backs the idea it hasn’t happened and there is a debate whether the term is needed and that it would do little or nothing to protect women who become victims of homicide.

Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis rebutted criticism of the minister, saying, “The fault cannot always lie at the top when something goes wrong in the state”, but admitted more should be done to shield women.

Lawyers representing Griva’s family have since called for the officers who spoke to Griva that day to be investigated for potential negligence and manslaughter but that hasn’t happened either.

Charities and families of victims have long accused Greek authorities of not taking domestic violence seriously enough, the continuation of violence coming despite the burgeoning of the #MeToo movement showcasing the seriousness.

In December 2023, when a woman was shot dead on the island of Salamina by her partner at her mother’s house after reporting him to the police, a Greek artist’s work alluding to femicide was removed from the Greek Consulate in New York .

A government spokesperson said Georgia Lale’s Neighbourhood Guilt, which depicted the Greek flag made with pink bedsheets, was taken down because the Consulate space should remain neutral and “there are some things that are sacred above all, one of them is our flag.”

Lale said in response that they were “saddened” that their work was misinterpreted. “Victims of femicide are heroes of the fight for freedom and life in Greece and internationally,” they said. The Consul-General was then recalled.

Katerina Kotti, the mother of 31-year-old Dora Zacharia, who was killed by her partner on the island of Rhodes in September, 2021, told Al Jazeera that she felt “rage, anger and disappointment” at the news of each new femicide.

Zacharia was killed outside her parents’ home. “This cannot happen again, how often will this keep happening?” Kotti asked. “My soul bleeds that another girl who was full of dreams, in love with life, was lost, another family have lost the ground under their feet and will have to struggle to put the pieces back together, this is very hard to do, they will never get over the loss of their child.”

FEMICIDE HOMICIDE

Of Griva’s killing she said,“Of course, we shouldn’t jump to conclusions or generalize but the authorities should pay more attention and evaluate each case more meticulously.”

Kotti said that boys especially should be taught from a young age that “they’re not entitled to anyone and that no means no, no one belongs to anyone else,” Greece being a patriarchal society in which women are viewed often as just housewives.

Protests and vigils have followed femicides or cases of sexual and other kinds of assault but have done nothing to help. Demonstrators carried banners saying, “The Patrol Car is Not a Taxi.”

Anna Vouyioukas, a social scientist, gender equality expert and advocacy officer at Diotima, a center for gender rights and equality in Greece, told Al Jazeera that it was “obvious that femicides may be the result of institutional violence as the state does not provide guarantees to women, and does not create conditions of safety in the community, at home, at work, in the public space and not even in the close vicinity of a police station”.

Vouyioukas said despite a spike in domestic violence cases as shown in the police’s own data, “gender-based crimes are not taken seriously by law enforcement authorities, at least not in all cases”.

She said that from 2020 to 2021, the number of women domestic violence victims increased by almost 73 percent, and from 2021 to 2022 there was a rise of 37 percent, urging adoption of the femicide term.

That, she said, would “make the phenomenon visible and give prominence to its social and gender dimension. It is a crime committed on the basis of gender discrimination and unequal power relations,” she said, as she also called for further support for survivors and more training for police officers.

Kotti is part of a group of grieving families that have lost female relatives to domestic violence who want life jail sentences with no chance of parole or release for those convicted of killing women.

“We should tell it as it is,” she said. “Those who have had a life sentence are the women themselves and then the families who are forced to live in their absence,” she said, although it was unlikely to be a deterrent.