In the future, all cantons should ensure that victims are cared for around the clock. The Federal Council also hopes that these measures will provide more reliable facts for possible criminal proceedings and more reports.
Violence should never be tolerated. The fight against domestic and sexual violence, for example, is a high priority, emphasized Federal Councilor Beat Jans at today’s media conference. He also said why: “The numbers are frightening. Last year, over 19,000 cases of domestic violence were registered in Switzerland, more than traffic accidents.”
Access to quality services
On average, two people die every month in Switzerland as a result of domestic violence, mostly women and girls. In the canton of Zurich, for example, three women became victims of femicide within just a few weeks. That’s why we have to act: “Victim support should be strengthened. And victims throughout Switzerland should have access to high-quality medical and legal services.”
Victims of violence often need medical help and psychological support quickly. This right exists and is already regulated in the Victim Assistance Act. The cantons are responsible. But victim support is not as developed everywhere in Switzerland as in the Bern Island Hospital or the CHUV University Hospital in Vaud.
Cantons must set up contact points
Changes to the law are now intended to ensure that each canton sets up contact points with specialized staff. Injuries or traces of crime would also have to be documented forensically. “That you really register the wounds and impact marks in detail, that you take genetic fingerprints, that you take toxicological samples, that you describe the psychological state of the victim,” says Beat Jans.
Photo Jans: At the media conference, Beat Jans called for forensic documentation of the victims by the cantons.
Keystone/PETER SCHNEIDER (October 9, 2024)
In this way, the investigations into the violent crime should be able to be recorded day and night and thus provide evidence for later prosecution. The costs for the legal medical documentation are primarily borne by the cantons’ emergency aid; it is free of charge for the victim. Even if those affected do not want to report the perpetrators.
Hope for more charges and convictions
Nevertheless, the Federal Council hopes that the facts provided will make victims more confident in filing a criminal complaint. A decision that some of those affected are often unable to make immediately after the crime. The evidence they have collected would give them time to consider the question: “The revision could therefore have a positive effect on the reporting rate and increase the number of criminal convictions.”
“Victim support should be strengthened,” said Federal Councilor Jans today.
Keystone/LUIS BERG (symbol image)
According to a report from the Justice Department, a study by the Lausanne University Hospital showed that 81 percent of patients in the violence ward used the documentation of the injuries as evidence. The majority of those who chose not to do so considered the forensic medical dossier to be useful. For the university hospital, this means that the documentation could also have a therapeutic effect on the victims.
The proposals for expanded victim support in all cantons are now being sent to parties, associations and cantons, among others, for assessment.