North Rhine-Westphalia’s Justice Minister, Benjamin Limbach (Greens), is speaking out in favor of new measures against violent offenders to improve the protection of women. He is “in favor of the electronic ankle bracelet, as per the Spanish model” Limbach told the “Rheinische Post” (Friday).
The minister explained: “If a stalker or violent offender enters a prohibited zone, for example, the neighborhood of their victim, only one authority receives an alarm today.” According to the Spanish model, the woman would also receive a receiver, warning her when the man approaches her. “Or, if she unknowingly gets close to him, for example, because they both happen to be in the same supermarket.”
This would be an objective increase in security. “NRW is one of several federal states that support this. We will discuss this with the new federal government next year.” Limbach is also in favor of the introduction of the so-called “de-escalation custody”: “Violent offenders should be able to be taken into custody more quickly in the event of a repeated offense” he said.
North Rhine-Westphalia’s Justice Minister, Benjamin Limbach (Greens), is also in favor of making catcalling, such as lewd gestures or degrading comments, a criminal offense. The victims are mostly women. “It’s good that women are no longer willing to accept sexist, degrading remarks in public. And as a state, we have the responsibility to protect women and young girls from this” he told the “Rheinische Post”.
“If it gets to the point where women no longer want to take the subway or bus, or don’t want to be in certain public places because they don’t want to hear degrading comments, then we as a society have a real problem.” The fact that an already overburdened justice system would have to deal with many cases with unclear evidence, leading to many cases being dropped, is not an argument against it for him.
“We can’t tell the affected women that we’re not going to prosecute this because it’s too much work. And that one has to investigate and find evidence is always the case, even with insults or malicious rumors. That’s why we don’t give up on it” Limbach said. “If we have gaps in the criminal code, we must close them. And we must do it now. Violence against women has increased in our society.