ATHENS—Anna, a 30-year-old woman living in Greece, never could have predicted what would happen to her after she decided to spend New Year’s Day with her sister at their home in the Galatsi neighborhood of Athens, instead of visiting her ex-boyfriend who had invited her over to his place. Driven by rage that afternoon, the 34-year-old man allegedly busted into her house wielding a knife, grabbed her by her hair, and whisked her off some three miles away to his apartment, where she endured two hours of brutal beatings at his hands.

In a perverse turn of events, her ex-boyfriend decided to showcase his brutality for all to see by livestreaming the attack on his Facebook page. In the gut-wrenching video, the man can be seen sitting on a couch with Anna next to him, shouting, “I am a man. I am a man, not a woman,” and pummeling his ex-girlfriend. Before cops broke down the door to arrest the man and rescue Anna, the man reportedly threatened to kill her and to blow up the entire building with a gas cylinder.

Anna, a Bulgarian national who has been living in Greece for the past three years, had been in a four-month relationship with the man. She told investigators the next day that this wasn’t the first time her ex, who is originally from Egypt, had been violent with her. “He had beaten me many times before, but I didn’t want to go to the cops,” she told police. Among other charges, the accused, who cannot be named in Greece before his trial takes place, stands accused of attempted homicide, kidnapping, and inflicting dangerous bodily harm.

“This is a perfect example of the patriarchy, that ‘I am a man and I have the right to do what I do,’... I am sure that there are a lot of Greeks who agree with him,” Kiki Petroulaki, a psychologist and president of the European Anti-Violence Network, told The Daily Beast. “The way we raise our boys and girls makes them two-speed citizens. We have placed so much guilt and responsibility on women and we have given so many inverted rights to men, that even if they do not agree, they somehow comply to be tough men.”

When Greek police forces arrived at the man’s apartment and started negotiating with him, they asked about Anna’s condition. “She is fine for now,” he reportedly replied. “When you see me holding her severed head in my hands, then you will understand that I am a man.”

The attack immediately trended on Twitter in Greece, with users describing the horrible video as “a punch in the stomach,” while others wondered how many more women will die at the hands of their partners this year. The hashtag #femicide—a term that has dominated Greek media over the past year—followed every post.

Seventeen women in Greece were killed by their current or former husbands, boyfriends, or partners in 2021, almost twice as many as the year prior. According to official data from Greece’s General Secretariat for Demography and Family Policy and Gender Equality, the annual number of domestic violence accusations in the country has gradually tripled in the past decade.

“This doesn’t necessarily mean that we have more cases of domestic violence, but that women talk more than before and seek help. Up until 2011, there wasn’t even a helpline for women to call,” explains Petroulaki. “The same goes for complaints to the police. As the number of complaints increases, this means that the police and the judiciary are doing a better job.”

In May of last year, Greek society was shocked by the brutal murder of British-born Caroline Crouch, a 20-year-old who was found strangled to death in her home next to her 11-month-old daughter. Her husband, Babis Anagnostopoulos, was found tied up at the scene, and had claimed that a group of thieves entered their house, tortured his family, and murdered his wife. It was only a month later that Anagnostopoulos allegedly copped to having committed the murder himself, with police claiming he had staged a fake burglary in a revelation that garnered headlines worldwide.

Following the news, union police officer Stavros Balaskas was the subject of nationwide fury after comments he made on Greek television regarding the case. “He is stupid. If [at] the time he killed his wife, he called the police and said it was an unfortunate event… that ‘he lost it and went crazy,’ he would not go to prison for more than four years.”

But the unfortunate reality is that what Balaskas said wasn’t far from the truth. The lack of proper legal procedures often leaves survivors of domestic violence exposed to future attacks by their partners.

According to Petroulaki: “There is a legal framework which was supplemented by the Istanbul Convention, but in reality we are lagging behind in implementation. There are families where domestic violence has been reported 2-3 or more times, but the courts are held after 4-5 years, the sentences are short… because almost all offenses are considered misdemeanors.” She added: “And at the end, what is a femicide? It’s the end of the road of domestic violence.”

One example is the case of Konstantina Tsapa from the central Greek village of Makrinitsa, whose husband was accused of stabbing her to death in April of last year. The 28-year-old woman was married to him for four years, but separated from him and moved out with their child after repeated bouts of violence. The family had reported the domestic abuse but before the case could be properly investigated, the 31-year-old man allegedly went to Konstantina’s house and killed her and her brother. He has since been charged with two counts of murder.

Meanwhile, experts say the COVID-19 pandemic has only worsened the plague of domestic violence in Greece. “Certainly, the pandemic itself did not make men abusive,” said Petroulaki, explaining that the more time an abusive man spends with his victims, the higher the chances are that violent outbursts will take place.

Despite the hike in domestic violence cases since the start of the pandemic, Petroulaki offered some hopeful insights into the future. “What we are noticing [now] is that in some cases, justice has begun to move a little faster and to impose some penalties and pre-trial detention. This is in the right direction, but we have the feeling that it happens in cases that get publicity. While there are hundreds more out there.”

Whether justice will be served in Anna’s case is yet to be seen. Her ex-boyfriend is currently sitting in jail, pending trial.

“I don’t know what will happen with him, but I am very afraid for my life,” the 30-year-old told reporters on her way out of a court appearance on Tuesday. “I am sure that if he is released, he will come back to find me and kill me.”