The police speculate that the previously missing Eleftheria, a mother of three who was found dead in her car with a bullet wound to the head, may have been victimized by her ex-partner.
If this is confirmed, it will be another case of female homicide, with the alleged perpetrator believed to have also ended his own life.
But the issue doesn’t fit into numbers and “lists”. We’re not talking about yet another record in the statistics of violence against women, but about three children left orphaned and a woman who lost her life in a power and control relationship that ended tragically. The recurrence of such incidents in Greece in 2026 cannot be treated as an isolated pathology, but as a deeper social phenomenon, as in any civilized country.
The phenomenon of femicide shows structures and perceptions that insist on treating women not as autonomous persons, but as objects of control within relationships. When this control is challenged or lost, in some cases – at the most extreme – it turns into violence, specifically murder.
The response cannot be only criminal. It requires a profound change in the way perceptions are formed around relationships, ownership over the other person and respect for autonomy.Education, social norms and early recognition of abusive behaviour are critical factors in preventing the same tragic pattern from repeating. But let’s make no mistake, the heaviest card of prevention lies within the family. If respect for women is not cultivated there, no matter what happens in the rest, the list will grow longer.
