Germany has no comprehensive national data on so-called “honor killings”—and the Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) wants to change that.
The party has submitted a motion to the Bundestag calling for the systematic recording of all attempted and completed murders committed “in the name of family honor,” with cases tracked nationwide for the first time since 2005. The proposal is scheduled for debate in parliament on Thursday.
Under the plan, the federal government would be required to compile all relevant cases over the past two decades, broken down by year and federal state, and make the findings publicly available. The AfD is also pushing for ongoing coordination with Germany’s Länder so that such crimes are formally included in official police crime statistics.
At present, no centralised dataset exists. A joint federal-state survey by the Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA) identified 55 cases between 1996 and 2005, but no systematic national tracking has been carried out since.
Non-governmental organisations have attempted to fill the gap. Women’s rights group Terre des Femmes recorded 19 cases in 2023 and six in 2024, though such figures remain incomplete and are not based on official nationwide reporting. Several private initiatives that previously monitored the issue have since scaled back or ceased their work.
The AfD argues that the absence of reliable data hinders both public debate and effective prevention. Its motion calls for “transparency and clarity” on the scale and development of the phenomenon.
In its definition, the party describes “honor killings” as acts in which women are murdered by relatives for allegedly violating traditional family norms—such as pursuing independent lifestyles, rejecting arranged marriages, or leaving partners. While women and girls are the primary victims, the motion notes that men can also be targeted in some cases, for example if they are deemed unsuitable partners.
The proposal also highlights the difficulty of categorising certain killings linked to notions of honor, particularly in cases of intimate partner violence where motives may overlap.
The debate in Germany comes as other European countries move to criminalise related practices. In Sweden, the government has proposed legislation to ban so-called “virginity tests,” which previously carried only professional disciplinary consequences. Under the new rules, medical professionals who carry out such procedures—or perform hymen reconstruction—would face criminal charges.
Such practices, while most commonly associated with conservative social norms in parts of the Middle East and North Africa, have also been documented within some migrant communities in Europe, prompting calls for clearer legal frameworks and stronger enforcement.
