The data appears in a report produced by the watchdog of Murdered Women, an initiative of UMAR, based on research into all murders and attempted murders in Portugal since 2004, the year in which the observatory was set up, which has identified 454 murders of women in the period.
“We found that the trend continues to women increasingly falling victim to the hands of those with whom they still had a relationship, whether of marriage, registered partnership, dating or other intimate relationship (277 of the cases), followed by the group with the murderer being a former husband, former partner or former boyfriend (101),” the observatory said.
In 83 percent of cases “the relationship between the victim and the murderer was a present or past intimate relationship,” states the report, which was released on the eve of the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women.
Comparing the various years since 2004, the observatory notes that “the age group whose members most fall victims to murder by gender violence is that of women aged over 50,” with 166 victims, followed by women aged between 36 and 50, of which there were 133. The ages of the murderers follow a similar pattern: 155 were over 50 and 136 were between 36 and 50.
In terms of the months when murders are committed, the UMAR study concludes that there is no longer a great concentration in the summer months, although these remain the period when the greatest number of such crimes are committed.
The watchdog found that 2016 was the year with the lowest frequency of attempted murders, with an average of two per month, whereas in previous years the average has been approaching three per month.