Greece has one of the lowest rates of abused women, according to the figures published by the EU Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA). Although numbers are pretty high, Greece is still in the lowest bracket of the report. It is not clear though, whether this lies in the fact that women suffer less violence or because they are afraid to report it, due to the following social embarrassment and the lack of effective legislation on the matter. Another matter of serious concern is the fact that marital rape is not considered a crime under the Greek Penal Code, thus the women raped within a marriage are not included in the report.
Overall FRA statistics on 28 EU countries estimate that 13 million women are victims of physical abuse, 3.7 million of which have been raped, or sexually attacked. Socially advanced countries like Sweden, Finland, Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania appear to be in the first places with the percentage of women who claim to be victims of abuse ranging from 20 to 39 percent.
Denmark is on top of the list with the number of victims reaching up to 52 percent of the total women’s population. It seems that the reason why countries such as Denmark, Finland and Sweden, often praised for their gender equality, have such high rates of abused women, lies in the fact that women in these countries are not afraid to report such events since they are fully covered and protected by the Law.
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