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Over 131,000 women in Finland have experienced life-threatening intimate partner violence, according to Statistics Finland. Yet the issue remains largely unspoken in public debate, despite the scale and severity of its impact.
In 2023, police recorded over 9,300 victims of domestic violence, most of them women. By comparison, there were just 2,700 robberies during the same year.
The silence around this form of violence is masking a deep crisis. Finland records more intimate partner homicides than any other Nordic country. On average, 22 people are killed annually in such incidents, with an additional 13 deaths from other domestic-related killings.
Most intimate partner violence never reaches authorities. In many cases, the abuse lasts for years before it escalates or is reported. Victims often struggle to seek help due to prolonged trauma and social isolation. The final act — a homicide — marks the end of a pattern of violence, not a random event.
The societal costs are significant. Women who experience physical abuse from partners generate an estimated €150 million annually in additional healthcare expenses alone. These figures exclude the long-term costs for children and other public services such as police, courts, and social welfare.
Despite the availability of promising tools and models — such as the MARAC system for risk assessment, anchor operations for youth crime prevention, SARC centres for sexual violence survivors, and dedicated key personnel networks — service provision varies widely by region. Some initiatives have been discontinued due to restructuring or budget cuts.
Johanna Hietamäki and Sirpa Koskela, both experts in gender-based violence, argue that this inconsistency puts lives at risk.
“Services for victims are vulnerable without binding legislation,” they write.
They call for Finland to establish a dedicated research unit focused on intimate partner homicides. Similar models already exist in other countries. The unit would aim not to assign blame but to analyse the chain of events leading to deaths and prevent them in future.
Such a unit would build a strong knowledge base to improve prevention strategies and ensure timely, expert support services. It would also propose reforms to legislation, service structures and inter-agency cooperation, and track the implementation of recommendations.
Establishing the unit would likely require new laws and funding. It could be placed within the Finnish Institute for Health and Welfare or a similar institution already working on violence prevention.
“Preventing violence is a core task of society,” Hietamäki and Koskela write. “It is always more sustainable than repairing the damage after the fact.”
HT
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Source: www.helsinkitimes.fi
