SUSANNE WENGER It is 13 February 2024 at around midday. A 41-year-old man punches his 38-year-old wife in the face and strangles her to death in their own home in an exclusive area of Binningen (canton of Basel-Landschaft). The couple, parents of two small children, are close to breaking up. The husband dismembers the body to dispose of it. A 47-year-old woman and her two daughters die after being stabbed in their apartment in Corcelles (canton of Neuchâtel) on the night of 19–20 August 2025. The 52-year-old ex-husband quickly becomes the focus of the investigation. A 71-year-old woman is found dead in her detached home in Grabs (canton of St Gallen) on 26 April 2026. The police arrest her 67-year-old husband. Three violent killings at three locations in three years. There are women of every age in Switzerland who live in danger within their own four walls. It is becoming harder for society and politicians to ignore the scourge of domestic violence. The time when such abuse was isolated has long since passed. On average, a woman dies from domestic violence every two to three weeks in Switzerland. The number of women and girls killed in 2025 was 25 – the highest yearly figure since the federal government began listing such crimes separately in 2009. Overall, there were 55 homicides in Switzerland last year. Government alarmed The victims of domestic violence also include men. But there is a clear pattern with homicides: over 90 percent of victims are female, and the perpetrators are mostly male. The peak of 2025 has alarmed the government. “We cannot go on like this,” Interior Minister Elisabeth Baume-Schneider declared. Justice Minister Beat Jans called it a crisis of safety, given that gender-based violence leads to more fatalities than other crime in Switzerland. A committee of government, cantonal and municipal representatives approved urgent action back in Femicides in Switzerland – violence behind closed doors With domestic killings of women reaching a new high in 2025, the Confederation and cantons are putting forward measures to curb the violence and give victims better protection. But is that enough? mid-2025, when cases were proliferating. One of the recommended measures is that regions work together to create safe spaces in women’s refuges. Nora Markwalder, criminal law professor at the University of St Gallen, does not yet see a sustained rise in the number of homicides against women but thinks the figures are worryingly consistent. Whereas recent decades have seen male-on-male killings fall sharply in Switzerland, the rate of intimate-partner homicides committed by men against women has remained much the same. “This is concerning,” she says. At the end of the Binningen murder trial in May 2026, people formed a human chain outside the court near Basel in memory of the woman who was killed. Photo: Keystone The number of women and girls killed in 2025 was 25 – a new record. Overall, there were 55 homicides in Switzerland last year. Swiss Review / July 2026 / No. 3 14 Society
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