מסמך מ.מ.מ ישיבת ועדה

Femicide and Attempted Femicide with an Emphasis on Domestic Violence Submitted to the Committee on the Status of Women and Gender Equality Main Findings Data on femicide Police data for 2013–2016 reveals that 113 women were the victims of criminal homicide, of whom 60 (approximately 53%) non-Jewish. Note that this rate is substantially higher than the percentage of non-Jewish women in the overall population. Of all women murdered from 2013–2016, some 58 (approximately 51%) were murdered by their intimate partner or other relative. Over the past decade (2007–2016), some 126 women were murdered by their intimate partner. Between 2013 and 2016, the Inter-ministerial Committee of Inquiry for the Investigation of the Murder of Women by their Intimate Partners examined 42 cases in which Israeli women were murdered by their intimate partners. One-third of these women were immigrants (“olot”); an additional one-third were Arab—of whom nine were murdered in the past two years. The data suggests that these groups are overrepresented in comparison to the overall population of Israel. According to data from the Ministry of Aliya and Integration, 13 women were murdered by their intimate partner in the first half of 2017. Two of these women were immigrants—both from the former Soviet Union. In approximately one-third of the cases in which women were murdered by their intimate partners, the victims had previously filed a domestic violence complaint with the police. During the past two years (2015–2016), almost half of the women murdered by their intimate partners were known to the police due to domestic violence. Moreover, approximately half of the women murdered by their intimate partner were known to the social services. Data on Attempted Femicide Between 2007 and 2016, the Israel Police opened 238 cases of attempted murder of women not attributable to hostile acts. The years 2015–2016 saw an increase of 67% in the number of cases opened for attempted murder of women (not attributable to hostile acts) as compared to the average for 2007–2014. Approximately half of the victims of attempted femicide were Arab women. The Israel Police did not provide data regarding immigrants who were victims of attempted femicide, and we were unable to obtain this information from other sources. During the first five months of 2017, the police opened 25 cases of attempted femicide. Half of the victims during this period, too, were Arab women. On average, the suspect is a family member in approximately one-third of all cases of attempted femicide. Of all the cases in which the suspect is a family member, some 62% on average involve a couple. In cases where the suspect is not a family member, the majority of suspects (approximately 80% of cases) are strangers to the victim. According to the data, approximately 20% of suspects in reported attempted femicides are the victim’s intimate partner. This contrasts with cases of femicide, where, as noted, the suspect is either the victim's intimate partner or another member of her family in fully half of all cases. Background This document is submitted to the Committee on the Status of Women and Gender Equality in advance of the discussion on femicide being held in the context of the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women. The document, which presents data on femicide and attempted femicide over the past decade, is based on crimes reported to the police. It includes details of the number of files opened by the police for these crimes, the relationship between the victim and the suspect (with an emphasis on murders of women by their intimate partner or another relative), a breakdown of victims by population group, data on indictments filed for these crimes, and the status of the murder cases. The document also addresses how the Israeli authorities address femicide. Several clarifications regarding the data must be presented at the outset: The Israel Police conducted an organizational change which affects the handling of data on femicides attributable to various motives. Presently, data on all women murdered in Israel (not just women who were murdered by their intimate partner) is collected by the Crime Victims Unit, not, as previously, by the Investigative Assistance Unit. Therefore, the data that the Knesset Research and Information Center received regarding all femicides cover only the period since 2013; the data obtained on murders of women by their intimate partners cover the previous decade in its entirety. Due to a directive issued by the Office of the Police Commissioner and despite a request by the Knesset Research and Information Center, no information was provided about the motives behind murders or attempted murders that were not attributable to domestic violence. In addition, note that the data presented in the document do not include information on murders and attempted murders of women in the context of hostile acts. Despite a request by the Knesset Research and Information Center, the police did not provide data on immigrant victims of femicide and attempted femicide. These data, which are presented in this document in the context of murders of women by their intimate partners, were provided by other government ministries and thus do not fully correlate with the police data. The data on femicide provided by the police include a breakdown based on whether a family relationship existed between the victim and suspect. They do not include a secondary breakdown based on the nature of this relationship. For the sake of clarity in presenting the data, police data for 2017—which cover only January through May (inclusive)—will be presented separately from the data regarding other years, for which there is complete information. Section One: Femicide During the past four years, more than one hundred women have been murdered, half by their intimate partner or another family member. This chapter will present data on the total number of women murdered between 2013 and 2016 and on women murdered by their intimate partners in the past decade. The data includes breakdowns of the victims by population group (Jewish and Arab, immigrants from the FSU and Ethiopia), the status of the murder cases being handled by the police, whether the women were known to social services, and whether domestic violence complaints had been filed with the police prior to the murder. The information below will present police data on all femicides (only criminally motivated murders, as noted above) and the status of these cases. Data on women murdered by their intimate partners will then be presented separately. All of the information was provided in response to inquiries by the Knesset Research and Information Center to the following entities: the Israel Police; the Ministry of Labor, Social Affairs and Social Services; and the Ministry of Aliya and Integration. Cases of Femicide Opened by the Police According to the police, between 2013 and 2016, 113 women in Israel were victims of criminal homicide, of whom 60 (53%) were not Jewish. Note that this percentage is substantially higher than the percentage of non-Jewish women in the overall Israeli population. Between January and May 2017, ten additional women were murdered, of whom four were not Jewish. Over the past two years (2015–2016), women constituted approximately one-quarter of all victims of criminal homicide. In 2014, approximately 20% of all the victims of criminal homicide were women; in 2013, that figure was approximately one-third. Graph 1 below presents a breakdown of women murdered between 2013 and 2016 by religious group. Graph 1: Number of femicide cases, 2013–2016, by religious group Through the beginning of June 2017, an indictment had been filed against the suspect in 81 cases of femicide, out of all the cases opened between 2013 and 2016 (113, as noted above). In 12 additional cases, the murder suspect had died, and in four cases, there was insufficient evidence against the suspect. Three cases are being handled by the State Attorney's Office, and the other cases are still under police investigation. Nearly all of the cases being investigated (approximately 85%) are from the past two years. Of all the cases of femicide that occurred between January and May 2017, six are under investigation by the police, indictments have been filed in three cases, and, in one case, the suspect died. Of all the women murdered between 2013 and 2016, 58 (approximately 51%) were murdered by their intimate partner or another relative. Approximately 57% of the Jewish victims were murdered by their intimate partner or relative; among non-Jewish women, the rate is approximately 47%. Note that 2016 saw a substantial increase in the percentage of women who were murdered by their intimate partner or by a relative as compared to the period 2013–2015—72% as opposed to 43%–48% in the other years. This increase occurred in both the Jewish and non-Jewish population sectors. According to data published in a UN Global Study, 47% of all femicides in 2012 were committed by the intimate partner or other relative—similar to the rate in Israel. Of the ten women murdered between January and May 2017, half (five women) were murdered by their intimate partner or other relative. All the women who were murdered by a relative during this period were Jewish. As noted above, due to the directive issued by the Office of the Police Commissioner—and despite the request of the Knesset Research and Information Center—no motive was provided for murders that were not attributable to domestic violence. Intimate Femicide As mentioned above, approximately half of all the women murdered in recent years were killed by their intimate partner or another relative. According to a study that reviewed data from 66 countries worldwide, intimate partner homicide accounts for 13.5% of all murders worldwide every year. Data published in a UN Global Study on homicide reveals that women constitute 79% of the victims of intimate partner murders. Because femicide attributable to domestic violence constitutes a large percentage of all femicides, both globally and in Israel, the section below presents information on intimate femicide in Israel over the past decade. Because the Israel Police did not provide all of the requested information, the Knesset Research and Information Center contacted other ministries that compile data on women killed by their intimate partners in order to examine additional data on the characteristics of the victims, in particularly data on immigrants and on women who were known to the social services before they were killed. This data will be presented below. Besides addressing data on women murdered by their intimate partner, this chapter will present the work of the Inter-ministerial Committee of Inquiry for the Investigation of the Killing of Women by their Intimate Partners, which operates in accordance with a 2004 government decision. The chapter will also present several policy measures on female victims of domestic violence from the action plan to implement the recommendations of the Inter-ministerial Committee on Preventing and Addressing Domestic Violence, which was published in March 2017 and adopted by the Ministerial Committee on Combating Violence in June 2017. Characteristics of the Victims Known to police Graph 2 below presents a breakdown of intimate femicide over the past ten years; the bottom segment of the column indicates incidents in which women had filed domestic violence complaints with the police before they were murdered. Graph 2: Intimate femicide, 2007–2016, by existence of prior police complaints As presented in the graph, of the 126 women murdered by their intimate partners in the past decade (2007–2016), more than one-third (approximately 35%) had previously filed a domestic violence complaint with the police. Over the past two years (2015–2016), almost half of the women murdered by their intimate partners were known to the police due to domestic violence (five of the 11 women in each year). Police data further reveal that three women—all Jewish—were murdered by their intimate partners in the first five months of 2017. None had previously filed a domestic violence complaint with the police. Despite the request by the Knesset Research and Information Center, the police did not state whether suspects in intimate femicide cases had a criminal record and, if so, what crimes they had committed. According to the response by the police, compilation of this data requires a great deal of effort and, moreover, not every charge on the criminal record of a person suspected of intimate femicide is necessarily related to this crime. In this context, it is worth noting that the Police Investigations and Intelligence Division procedure entitled Police Handling of Domestic Violence Crimes includes a criminal history of violent crimes among the conditions for filing a motion of remand until the end of legal proceedings against someone suspected of domestic violence. Breakdown of the Murder Victims by Population Group As mentioned, the Israel Police refused to provide information regarding immigrant women who were murdered by their intimate partner. This refusal was explained as follows: “Based on an in-depth review of the issue of providing information broken down by suspects' and victims' ethnicity/‍religion/‍race/‍area of residence, the Israel Police found that when these data reference fault lines within Israeli society, they may lead to population sectors being labeled in terms of crime and cause offense to certain population sectors. Furthermore, this labeling may negatively affect public order and security due to the reaction of the relevant population sector to the labeling.” Therefore, in order to obtain this data, the Knesset Research and Information Center contacted the Ministry of Labor, Social Affairs and Social Services (hereinafter, "Social Affairs Ministry"), where the Inter-ministerial Committee to Examine the Killing of Women by their Intimate Partners (hereinafter, "the Committee") compiles statistics on women who were murdered by their intimate partner (details of the Committee's work will be introduced later in the document). The annual Committee reports reveal that between 2013 and 2016, some 10–11 Israeli women were murdered by their intimate partner every year. These figures do not fully correspond to the police data on intimate femicide provided to the Knesset Research and Information Center. The discrepancy may be attributed to the fact that police data are dynamic and updated retroactively, or to the fact that police files also include cases of female victims who lacked legal status in Israel (“foreigners”), whereas the Committee does not address these cases or include these victims in the count of Israeli women murdered by their intimate partner. In this context, it should be emphasized that the Committee data were compiled manually and not by computer and are not taken from the same Israel Police database (although Israel Police is the source of the Committee's data). Table 1 below displays data from the Committee, which also specifies the population sector to which the victim belonged: immigrants from the former Soviet Union and Ethiopia, Arab women, and women who lack legal status (“foreigners”). Table 1: Women murdered by their intimate partner, 2013–2016, by religion, status and country of origin The data in the table reveal that between 2013 and 2016, the Committee discussed 42 cases of Israeli women murdered by their intimate partner. Below is a breakdown of the victims by population group: 14 women (one-third) were immigrants. According to data from the Social Affairs Ministry, 12 were immigrants from the FSU and two were Ethiopian immigrants. Note that according to data from the Ministry of Aliya and Integration (which are presented later in this chapter), 11 of the victims were immigrants from the FSU and three were women of Ethiopian descent. We do not have an explanation for the discrepancy in the data. Approximately one-third of the victims (13 women) were Arab, of whom nine were murdered during the past two years. A comparison between 2013–2014 and 2015–2016 reveals a substantial increase in the percentage of Arab women among all the women murdered by their intimate partner, from 20% to 41%. During this four-year period, six women without legal status in Israel were murdered by their intimate partner—five in 2013 alone. In this context, we note that the Committee has no mandate to discuss cases in which the woman was murdered by someone other than her intimate partner—even another relative—a phenomenon that, according to the report, is "common within Arab families." Hence, the data in the table only partially reflect the phenomenon of femicide by relatives, at least as regards Arab women. Pursuant to data published by the Social Affairs Ministry, the ministry's National Inspector on Domestic Violence, Said Tali, noted on the most recent International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women: “Recent years have seen an increase in the percentage of Arab women among female victims of murder. Besides constituting a high percentage of the women murdered by their intimate partners, they constitute the overwhelming majority of victims of murders committed by a family member who is not an intimate partner, which characterizes primarily Arab society. The data further reveal that immigrants from the FSU are overrepresented among the victims from the past four years relative to the general population and that immigration and/or a cultural background from certain countries increase a woman's risk of being a victim of violence” (emphasis added). In addition to the data above, in response to a query by the Knesset Research and Information Center, the Ministry of Aliya and Integration provided data on the murder of immigrant women—all from the FSU and Ethiopia—by their intimate partners between 2004 and 2016. These data do not fully correspond to the data from the Social Affairs Ministry or the latest police data, even though the data themselves originate with the police. These data are important because they provide information on the prevalence of murder among immigrant women over a relatively long period of time. Below is a summary of the information presented in Graph 3: Female immigrants from these countries are overrepresented among women murdered by their intimate partner between 2004 and 2016, as they make up approximately 10% of the general population. Although immigrants constituted more than half of the victims of intimate femicide each year from 2004–2006, they have constituted less than half of all victims of intimate femicide since 2007. However, the small number of incidents makes it impossible to point to a statistically significant trend indicating a consistent decline in the percentage of immigrant women among all the victims of intimate femicide. Graph 3: Veteran Israeli Women and Immigrants from the Former USSR and Ethiopia Murdered by their Intimate Partners, 2004–2016 In some years, the fact that immigrant women constituted a lower percentage of all victims of intimate femicide was due not to a decline in the number of murdered female immigrants but, instead, to an increase in the number of veteran Israelis—including Arabs—who were killed by their intimate partner. (For example, the number of immigrant women killed by their intimate partner was almost identical in the two periods 2004–2005 and 2011–2012, but the percentage of immigrants among all women murdered by their intimate partner during the latter period was lower, with an average of 45%). Between 2014 and 2016, slightly less than one-quarter of all the women murdered by their intimate partner were immigrants. In terms of immigrants' country of origin, between 2004 and 2016, Ethiopian women made up approximately 43% of all female immigrants murdered by their intimate partner. This is substantially higher than the percentage of Ethiopian women among all female immigrants in the general Israeli population, which stands at approximately 10%. This percentage declined substantially over the past four years, as presented above in the data of the Inter-ministerial Committee of Inquiry for the Investigation of the Killing of Women by their Intimate Partners. Approximately one-quarter of the women murdered by their intimate partner in the past four years were immigrants from the former Soviet Union. The 2017 figures provided by the Ministry of Aliya and Integration, which cover the first half of the year (January to June inclusive), reveal that 13 women in Israel were murdered by their intimate partner during the six-month period, of whom two were immigrants—both from the FSU. The response from the Ministry of Aliya and Integration further stated that, in recent years, the relevant information provided by the police is partial in nature, as the police do not provide a breakdown by country of immigration despite collecting this information. The Knesset Committee on the Status of Women and Gender Equality raised the issue that the Police do not transmit the information they hold regarding the country of origin of female immigrant victims of violence. Police treatment of the issue was presented at the beginning of this chapter. Known to Social Services The response by the Social Affairs Ministry to the query by the Knesset Research and Information Center was that approximately half of the women murdered by their intimate partner were previously known to the social services, whether due to a history of domestic violence or to a need for another form of assistance. The ministry also noted that several of the women who were known to the social services due to domestic violence had previously resided in battered women’s shelters and were murdered after having left them—in some cases, a long time after having left the shelter and after having started an independent life. Other women who were murdered had been offered residence at a shelter but had refused the offer. Frame 1: The Committee to Examine Intimate Femicide The 2001 State Comptroller’s Report dedicated a chapter to the efforts of the Minister of Labor and Social Welfare (now the Ministry of Labor, Social Affairs and Social Services) to address domestic violence. The audit found deficiencies in the Ministry’s handling of the phenomenon, including the lack of regular follow-up to investigate femicides for the purposes of reviewing the nature of the therapeutic intervention by the welfare office in the family's case. According to the Comptroller’s report, this deficiency adversely affected the Ministry’s ability to draw conclusions and lessons from these cases. In the wake of the report, the Ministerial Committee for Coordination, Administration and State Audit adopted Resolution TM/42, which was granted the force of a Government decision in May 2002. The resolution stipulated, inter alia: “The Director General of the Ministry of Labor and Social Welfare will be responsible for investigating every intimate femicide, in conjunction with the Ministry of Public Security, the Israel Police, the Ministry of Education, the Ministry of Health, and the local authority in which the incident occurred, in order to draw conclusions regarding the extent of the involvement of the welfare office in the family's case prior to the murder.” The resolution further stipulated that the conclusions of the investigation would be sent to the participants in investigating the incident. In reality, the Committee began its work in 2004. In general, the Committee convenes after every intimate femicide, but it occasionally discusses several incidents at the same time. Social worker Ayala Meir, Director of the Service for Individual and Family Welfare in the Ministry of Social Affairs, has headed the Committee for the past several years. We emphasize that the Committee has no statutory status, no defined and clear responsibilities, and, to date, no written and defined work procedure. According to the response by the Ministry of Social Affairs regarding Committee activity, not all ministry representatives regularly attend Committee sessions. It is worth noting that the Committee only addresses cases of intimate femicide. As such, it does not address cases in which women are murdered by other family members, even though such incidents are occasionally gender-based. The Committee also does not address cases of men who were in homosexual relationships and were murdered by their intimate partner or cases in which the murdered woman lacked legal status in Israel, as it does not have the mandate to do so. A new, recently formulated draft procedure proposes expanding the Committee's purview to encompass cases in which women or other family members are murdered by a relative. According to response by the Social Affairs Ministry to the Knesset Research and Information Center, the procedure “is in the process of final approval ahead of dissemination.” The Inter-ministerial Committee on Preventing and Addressing Domestic Violence also devoted attention to this subject, as discussed in Frame 2 of this document. Committee insights regarding systemic risk factors for women under threat In its work, the Committee pointed to several systemic obstacles that could pose a danger to women under threat (in addition to personal elements of a relationship, such as divorce and separation). Difficulty with system-wide and inter-agency work as it relates to coordinating and sharing information between entities tasked with providing services, both on the inter-ministry level and between units within the same ministry. For example, there are problems transferring information between the Health and Social Affairs Ministries in situations where the male perpetrator or the murdered woman was known to the mental health system. Difficulty in obtaining consent by the threatened woman to participate in the protection plan offered to her by the social services or the police. According to the report, this is occasionally "affected by the social and cultural ties" of these women. Lack of sufficient mechanisms to force violent men to undergo therapy and the absence of a sufficient emphasis within the welfare system on the relationship with the man and on helping him. Avoidance, on the part of the threatened woman, of reporting or seeking assistance from government agencies, including the healthcare, welfare, education, and absorption services. Difficulty in responding to the needs of women from special population groups: lack of understanding, sensitivity, and cultural competence among social workers and professionals in overlapping fields; difficulties with professionals’ work with religious and community leaders; and a shortage of social workers who speak the women’s language (Russian, Amharic, and Arabic). According to the Committee’s conclusions, not all the shortcomings that the State Comptroller uncovered more than 15 years ago in the aforementioned report on the treatment of domestic violence have been resolved to date. Moreover, several of these remain critical risk factors for threatened women who are victims of domestic violence. Inter alia, the Comptroller’s comment on “the lack of systematic compilation of information and the lack of accepted arrangements regarding the transfer of information between the many government ministries handling various aspects of the problem of violence between intimate partners is still relevant. This comment was also addressed in the context of the plan to implement the recommendations of the Committee on Preventing and Addressing Domestic Violence; Frame 2 of this document presents the principles of this plan that are relevant to the subject at hand. Committee achievements One of the main achievements of the Committee’s work is the entry into force of the joint work procedure with the Israel Police known as the “Procedure for improving the coordination between the Ministry of Social Affairs and Social Services and the Israel Police regarding domestic violence, and particularly women at high risk." The procedure aims to optimize coordination between the authorities to minimize information and treatment gaps between the Police and social services in domestic violence cases, particularly with regards to female victims of violence who are at high risk. According to the Israel Police, as part of the procedure, which has been in force since 2016, every police station generated a list of women who are at risk due to domestic violence using the Israel Police risk assessment tool. We note in this context that the Israel Police and the welfare offices have different tools to assess the risk faced by women threatened by domestic violence. The assessment tool used by the police is stricter than that used by the welfare offices; as such, a woman may be classified as high-risk by the assessment tool used by the welfare office but lower risk by the assessment tool used by the Israel Police. The risk assessment by the police takes precedence. As specified in the procedure, the Israel Police maintains a list of women classified as high risk according to the assessment. Periodically, discussions are held by the relevant officials in the Police and the Social Affairs Ministry—at varying levels of command and administration and at varying degrees of frequency—in order to discuss aspects of the women's risk and protection. According to the procedure, the discussion can address cases of other women, besides those on the Police list: threatened women who the welfare services believes are at high risk even if no official complaint was filed with the Police and cases in which information indicates that a woman faces risk from the extended family or that there is concern of such a risk. The procedure aims to add these actions to the joint efforts regularly carried out between the police and welfare officials—not to replace them—and, based on the responses from the Social Affairs Ministry and the Police, it is being implemented successfully and satisfactorily. The procedure was first implemented in 2016, and it would be appropriate to examine its effects and contribution to the joint work and the treatment of women at high risk in the two years since. The action plan of the Committee on Preventing and Addressing Domestic Violence notes the need to expand the procedure and consolidate the risk assessment tools. The principles of the proposed expansion and the issue of consolidating the various ministries' assessment tools is mentioned in Frame 2 of this document. The Knesset Research and Information Center contacted the Ministry of Public Security to receive data pertaining to the handling of this matter by the police: Data on the frequency of joint meetings between the police and welfare officials in 2016, as required under the procedure; details of the threat levels that the police have defined to classify the level of risk faced by threatened women; and the number of women classified at the highest risk levels under the risk assessment tools used by the police. Although a lengthy period of time had passed since we submitted our request for data, the Ministry of Public Security had not addressed these questions by this document's submission date. Section Two: Attempted Femicide The first part of the document presented data on femicide in Israel attributable to domestic violence. This section of the document examines if and to what extent these murders represent a broader phenomenon of severe violence against women, which are classified by the police for statistical purposes as crimes against human life. In particular, several subjects will be examined, such as the number of criminally motivated attempted murders of women that take place every year in Israel, the victims' profile, and the percentage of victims of attempted murder who are also victims of domestic violence. On average, women constituted 15% of the victims of the attempted murders reported in Israel between 2007 and 2016, with an annual range of 6–21%. Because this document does not address attempted murders due to hostile acts, such cases were not included in the attempted femicides presented in the data, by request of the Knesset Research and Information Center. Graph 4: Number of cases of attempted femicide, 2007–2016 Between 2007 and 2016, 238 cases of attempted femicide not attributable to hostile acts or security events were opened. In the first five months of 2017, 25 cases for this crime were opened.. The graph above presents the number of cases of attempted femicide. We must clarify that, in contrast to murder cases, which are based on events, the data on attempted murder are based on police complaints; as such, these data do not necessarily present an accurate count of the actual number of attempted murders. As presented in the graph, 2015–2016 saw an increase of approximately 67% in the number of attempted femicide cases opened (not attributable to hostile acts), as compared to the 2007–2014 average. Over the past decade, the number of attempted femicide cases, not including those attributable to hostile acts, averaged some 24 every year. Hence, 2017 will not see a decrease in the number of attempted femicide cases in comparison to the average number in each year of this decade. Police data provided to the Knesset Research and Information Center reveals that an indictment was filed for attempted femicide in 71 (30%) of the cases opened between 2007 and 2016. Of these, in 40 cases (56% of the cases in which an indictment was filed), the victim was a woman from the Jewish sector, which is similar to the percentage of Jewish women among all women who were victims of this crime, as specified below. Of all the cases of attempted femicide opened between 2015 and 2016, indictments were filed in approximately 23%. Half of these indictments—8 in total—are cases of victims from the non-Jewish population sector, which is comparable to the percentage of victims from the non-Jewish population groups during this period. We can assume that there are other cases in which police or legal procedures have not been completed, and, as such, these data are not final. In 2017, a total of 3 indictments were filed from among the 25 cases opened in the first five months of the year. The Relationship between the Suspect and the Victim As noted above, the identity of the attacker in cases of attempted femicide is important to the question of whether the victims of attempted femicide have similar characteristics to women who were murdered. The data presented in the previous chapter of this document reveals that approximately half of the women murdered in the past decade were killed by their intimate partner or another relative. In contrast, the data displayed in Table 2 below suggests that in most reported cases of attempted murder, the suspect is unknown to the victim. Table 2: Attempted murder, by relationship between suspect and victim, 2007–2016 The data in the table reveal that: On average, the suspect is a family member in approximately one-third of all cases of attempted femicide. Of all cases in which the suspect is a family member, approximately 62% on average involve an intimate partner (current or former). Note that the data cover cases of mutual complaints between the members of the couple; in such cases, the case is counted only once. When the suspect involved is not a relative (two-thirds of cases during the years in question), the suspect is unknown to the victim in the majority (approximately 80%) of cases. Characteristics of the Victims As mentioned, the police opened 238 case files for attempted femicide between 2007 and 2016. Some 127 women were Jewish and 114 (47%) were not Jewish (total: 241 victims). Graph 5 below presents the number of victims of attempted femicide over the past decade, broken down by religion. Graph 5: Attempted femicide cases, broken down by victim's religion, 2007–2016 In addition to the data in the graph, there were 26 victims of attempted femicide in the first five months of 2017, of whom half (13) were not Jewish. Note that data from the police reveal that members of the Arab sector (both men and women) are overrepresented among victims of murder and attempted murder relative to their share of the general population. Handling of Victims of Attempted Femicide and Women under Threat by the Ministry of Labor, Social Affairs and Social Services and the Ministry of Aliya and Integration According to the response by the Ministry of Social Affairs, there is no specific procedure for addressing cases of attempted femicide. Furthermore, if a family is not known to the social services before an attempted femicide, social services is not always involved in providing care following such an even (and, if it is, the involvement is not necessarily in real-time). Note that the ministry’s response mentioned that a procedure known as the Procedure for Crisis Intervention and Reporting had recently been formulated to govern interventions in cases of serious injury in a family. It instructs the social services how to act in such cases and sets forth principles for handling families during crises involving serious injury, even to the point of murder. The Knesset Research and Information Center was informed that families known to the social services, including women who professionals believe are at risk of losing their lives, are handled using a procedure known as “Red Lights.” As part of this procedure, the social services professionals convene with other officials to discuss and determine protection and intervention methods. The Ministry’s response further states that the procedure was updated and is now called “Intervention in Red Light Cases before Crisis Events”; the ministry expects to disseminate it to welfare offices in the near future.” As mentioned, the Ministry's response indicated that the two procedures are currently in the approval process and have not yet been disseminated; as such, they were not made available to the Knesset Research and Information Center, either. The Ministry of Aliya and Integration stated that it does not provide care in the event of the murder or attempted murder of immigrant women and that there is no procedure for addressing such circumstances. The ministry also noted that its Social Services Unit generally receives information about these incidents in the wake of media reports or through professionals in the Ministry of Labor, Social Affairs and Social Services. Frame 2 The Inter-ministerial Committee to Address Domestic Violence and the Action Plan to Implement its Recommendations On 10 September 2014, the decision was made to establish an Inter-ministerial Committee to Address Domestic Violence in order to formulate recommendations to improve system-wide treatment of the phenomenon. The committee was headed by the deputy director general of the Ministry of Public Security, and it submitted its recommendations in June 2016. The main subject addressed in the committee’s recommendations is the need for cooperation between the professionals involved in caring for domestic violence victims, as regards both the transfer of information and the coordination of the various types of assistance provided during the course of care. This need stems from the understanding that such cooperation is the foundation for improving the national response to this phenomenon. The committee set forth the following objectives, among others: significant improvement in the sequence of care provided to those in the circle of domestic violence and improving this care and adapting it to specific population groups in a culturally sensitive manner. In that context, the committee mentioned several barriers regarding the treatment of domestic violence. As regards femicide and threatened women at high risk, the committee noted the following barriers in its report: Organizational and statutory obstacles, as a result of which information that may be relevant to treating a family involved in the cycle of violence, including information regarding the intent to commit premeditated injury, does not reach all the care and enforcement officials. This difficulty can harm care to the point of causing actual harm. Difficulties in cooperation between all the care providers during the identification stage and in enforcement, protection, and in treatment until rehabilitation. Difficulties in collecting and transferring information among the relevant parties, which are not necessarily related to legal restrictions. The lack of a single responsible entity on the local or national levels, and the fact that treatment is decentralized among several care providers. These make it difficult to provide therapy to families affected by violence and to ensure that these families are able to fully exercise their rights. The existence of three different risk-assessment entities that do not coordinate among themselves (the Police and the Ministries of Social Services and Health). In addition, these entities do not demonstrate cultural sensitivity towards unique population groups; as such, they might not be monitoring the level of risk that the women face in real time. The lack of protection for women for whom shelters do not provide an adequate response, including women at high and ongoing risk who do not want to remain in a shelter. The absence of a procedure to address situations in which an intimate partner who was imprisoned for domestic violence is released from prison while posing a high risk and may commit the crime again in the absence of protective order. In addition, there are difficulties in identifying violations of protective orders. Several months after the committee's report was published, a plan was issued to implement the recommendations it contained. In order to prepare the plan of action, the obstacles noted by the committee were divided up and discussed separately by ten teams. Below are the recommendations made by the team that focused on women affected by domestic violence, particularly threatened women at high risk, as well as additional recommendations that are relevant to issues presented in this document: Expansion of the coordination improvement procedure—The team recommended that welfare officials inform the police of a planned exit from the shelter by a woman at risk, an event that requires immediate preparation. It also recommended that the police be updated in the case of an unscheduled exit by a woman at risk who is in a shelter, as well as in situations when a stay in a child contact center is mandated for the children of a woman in a shelter whose life is in danger. Amendment to the procedure of the Inter-ministerial Committee to Examine the Killing of Women by their Intimate Partners—The recommendation was that the committee's mandate be expanded to encompass additional cases of femicide—such as femicide by another family member—and the murder of men by their female intimate partners or their children. In this context, it was suggested that the Committee chair be granted the discretion and authority to discuss cases in which the family relationship between the murderer and the victim does not fall under the definition of "family member," provided that an extended family relationship exists and the murder is attributable to domestic violence. It was further recommended that the committee have the authority to obtain relevant information and to share information even without a waiver of confidentiality. It was also recommended that the committee be granted the authority to oversee implementation of its recommendations within the various ministries and to receive updates from the ministries regarding work procedures and policies. The team's chapter entitled “Solutions for Women at High Risk and in Ongoing Danger” proposes expanding the assistance that battered women’s shelters provide to victims of domestic violence; maintaining constant communication between the shelter, the Police, and the referring department in the welfare office; and establishing a district-level team to assess risk levels and examine the option of returning women to their families. It also proposed establishing a separate residential unit for women expected to be at high risk even after staying at the shelter and integrating these women into a rehabilitation village. The action plan notes that these measures are relevant to women facing high, immediate, and chronic risk to the point of threats of murder and death. According to the report, these are primarily battered women from the Muslim and Bedouin sectors, Eritrea, immigrants from Muslim former Soviet republics, or women in crime families. Another solution proposed for women at high risk who cannot be given optimal protection within the borders of the State of Israel is overseas relocation to countries with which Israel has an arrangement, which would be part of an expansion of the witness protection program. As for consolidating the risk assessment tools, the team that addressed the subject concluded that such a step is neither possible nor professionally appropriate. However, the team decided that the tools should be adapted to the needs of the care providers and tailored to unique populations in Israeli society so that they take these groups' cultural sensitivities into account. The report mentioned modifications for the following population groups: Arabs, Ultra-Orthodox Jews, new immigrants, and members of the LGBT community. In this context, the team further proposed establishing proper training programs for the various officials involved in the danger assessments and enshrining the status of the assessment tools in legislation. Writing: Rinat Benita ‏ 13 Sivan 5777 Approval: Orly Almagor-Lotan, Team Leader 15 November 2017 Edited by: Knesset Minutes Editorial Department