On Saturday, Luxembourg City turned orange as hundreds joined a solidarity march demanding greater efforts to combat violence against women.
"Orange Week" is an annual global event dedicated to raising awareness of violence against women. On Saturday, more than 300 participants joined a solidarity march in Luxembourg City, marking the event's eighth consecutive year.
The colour orange has become a worldwide symbol of the movement to combat violence targeting women.
Claudine Speltz, President of the Luxembourg Women's Council, addressed the specific nature of this violence during the event. She explained that the aim of domestic violence and gender-based violence is often to "degrade" victims and make them feel inferior.
While Speltz acknowledged that Luxembourg's legal framework is "not bad" in certain aspects, she criticised the insufficient funding and resources allocated to educational campaigns, particularly those targeting children and adolescents.
Speakers at the march emphasised several demands. A key issue raised was the lack of comprehensive statistics on crimes such as rape and forced marriages in Luxembourg. Demonstrators also urged the government to explicitly classify femicide as a crime in the country's penal code.
The term femicide refers to the killing of a woman because of her gender. Worldwide, the number of recorded femicides has risen, partly due to improved data collection. In Germany alone, approximately 1,000 attempts to kill women or girls were documented in 2023, resulting in 360 deaths.
