28 women killed in 2026: Government delays regulations for femicide law
Nearly six months after the femicide law came into force, the Government has not issued the regulation necessary for its implementation. At least 26 cases of femicide have been documented in 2026.
Femicide law blocked without government regulation six months after adoption
Jurnalul.ro reports that nearly six months after Law no. 53/2026 on the prevention and combating of femicide came into force, the Government has still not issued the regulation necessary for its implementation. The legal deadline is approaching soon, and the instruments for evaluating and managing femicide risk remain, for now, without operational legal support.
The law came into force on 26 April 2026. Parliament established a six-month deadline from publication in the Official Gazette for the adoption of a government regulation approving the specific instruments for identifying and managing risks. Without this secondary normative act, no concrete provision of the law can be put into practice by authorities.
At least 26 cases documented in 2026
The Stop Femicides organisation has documented at least 26 cases of femicide from the beginning of 2026 until September, figures cited by the FILIA Centre. Romania currently does not have an official database monitoring such crimes. The absence of a government regulation blocks precisely the mechanism through which the police, judicial bodies and forensic medicine institutions would be required to collect and centralise relevant data about cases of violence, victims, perpetrators and the circumstances of the crimes.
The EUROPOL police union warns that the Executive shows no sign of hurrying to adopt the normative act, despite the legal deadline approaching its end. "If the competent ministries had been headed by politicians for whom citizen safety and the protection of victims of violence represented a real priority, we would have expected all necessary administrative steps to be taken in time," union representatives stated. "The delay is not merely a bureaucratic problem — it can become a matter of life and death."
What the law provides
Law no. 53/2026 is not limited to amendments to the Penal Code. It defines femicide as the intentional killing of a woman, including death caused by blows or injuries causing fatal harm in contexts of control and domination, in couple relationships or in situations connected to the victim's gender.
The Penal Code is supplemented with aggravating circumstances for acts committed in such contexts. The Code of Criminal Procedure provides that the court may establish the unworthiness of a convicted person to inherit from the estate of a person whose death they caused when there are interests of vulnerable persons to be protected.
The law also involves the Romanian Observatory for the Analysis and Prevention of Murders (ORAPO), which is to analyse the collected data and publish an annual report on femicide cases and other murders in the context of domestic violence, including attempts and prevention recommendations. The Ministry of Education and Research will be required to introduce topics on gender equality, forms of violence against women and non-violent relationships into school programmes.
138,000 interventions in 2025, calls up 40%
The context in which the law stagnates is one of mounting pressure: in 2025, police intervened in 138,000 cases of domestic violence, and the number of calls to the dedicated domestic violence line increased by 40% compared to the previous year. Last year, 130,000 cases were recorded at national level.
EUROPOL calls on ministries and all responsible institutions to treat with maximum urgency the adoption of all acts necessary for the effective implementation of the law. In the same context, the union brings back into discussion another stalled legislative project: the Law on Missing Persons, developed following the tragedy at Caracal, which has been awaiting Parliament's vote for over seven years.
An incomplete mechanism
EUROPOL representatives emphasise that the government regulation will not resolve the femicide phenomenon on its own, but its absence leaves incomplete an essential part of the prevention mechanism. Judicial bodies are obliged by law to use specific instruments for assessing risk in cases concerning domestic violence — instruments that must, however, be approved through the normative act that the Government has not issued.
Without a national database and without risk assessment instruments, authorities cannot intervene preventively before violence becomes lethal, police warn.
Source: Jurnalul.ro