Breaking the Cycle of Femicide

Domestic violence that ends in murder in Blitar, Lebong, and Asahan (February 2026) mirrors a rising pattern of domestic violence in Indonesia—from 4,178 reported cases in 2024 to 4,472 in 2025—with intimate femicide (femicide of female partners) rising by 43% according to Komnas Perempuan.

The three cases reveal patriarchal rural power structures embedded in poverty that aggravate control over wives to fatal ends, in line with the family criminology perspective that DV often extends from partners to children, as recently seen in Sukabumi.

These patterns confirm that DV is not merely an interpersonal conflict but a family cycle requiring systemic intervention.

Three Fatal DV Cases

Blitar, East Java: Sri Nesyati, a housewife known to neighbours as friendly, died with bruising all over her body, including injuries to the head and neck from strangulation and brutal blows. Her pale body, already dead, was carried by her husband, the perpetrator, to a puskesmas, indicating death had occurred hours earlier.

Lebong, Bengkulu: Aulia, a newlywed bride who was four months pregnant, was killed by OY, the husband who had been married to her for only four months. After being strangled and beaten until unconscious, she was attacked with a sharp weapon; her parents lost their prospective grandchild and their beloved daughter in one tragedy.

Asahan, North Sumatra: Autopsy of Ananda Isnaini Putri revealed the cause of death as asphyxia due to water being poured into her mouth and nose after a brutal beating, causing fatal difficulty in breathing.

The husband, who should be a protector, supporter, and partner, instead becomes the final executioner in these three cases—a deep betrayal of the foundational role in marriage, as analysed by Dobash & Dobash in Violence Against Wives (1979): Rather than channeling economic or emotional frustration through dialogue or external help, they choose violence as a ‘correction’ for alleged breaches of household authority.

Ironically, this role contradiction mirrors a national pattern recorded by Komnas Perempuan, where DV is no longer sporadic but a rising trend. Data from Komnas Perempuan show that in one year, reports of violence against women rose from 4,178 in 2024 to 4,472 in 2025, an increase of about 7%, as stated at a hearing of the DPR Commission VIII on 15 January 2026.

If these figures highlight formal reporting, a more alarming picture appears in intimate femicide (DV ending in murder): at least 7 cases in 2024 rose to at least 10 in 2025, a 43% increase. The actual number is higher due to underreporting and many local cases that do not reach national attention.

Motivation of DV Perpetrators

Using a criminological lens, strain theory (Merton, 1939) shows that perpetrators often commit violence against partners due to economic or emotional pressure, such as anger from minor arguments that fail to be resolved adaptively, causing daily conflicts to erupt into extreme violence.

Conversely, a strong patriarchal culture—with the norm ‘husband as head of the family’—institutionalises female subordination, particularly in rural areas, making wives objects of total control in economic, sexual, and emotional spheres. When women are seen as ‘violating’ or challenging male authority, this is read as a threat to the husband’s position, increasing the risk of escalation to physical violence ending in death.

The pattern becomes clearer within the Walker cycle framework: DV does not appear once and stop, but runs through three interlocking phases. First, tension-building; second, acute violence—physical, verbal, emotional, or sexual—as a way to ‘release’ pressure while asserting control; third, the honeymoon phase, when the perpetrator apologises, promises to reform, offers romantic attention, or blames the victim, making it difficult for the wife to leave, forgive, and return, so the cycle repeats.

This concept refers to the cycle of violence model by Lenore E. Walker in The Battered Woman (1979), which remains widely used to understand repeating violence in intimate relationships.

Exploring the rural socio-economic context of these areas, the cases in Blitar, Lebong, and Asahan appear to reflect a repeated pattern in structurally poor regions. Deep-seated poverty, dependence on unstable agricultural land, and low per-capita incomes—usually below IDR 2.5 million per month—create latent economic pressures inside households.

Within rural patriarchal norms, husbands are expected to be the main breadwinners; when they fail to meet this expectation, shame, powerlessness, and frustration accumulate. Minor conflicts—such as not making coffee, being teased for poverty, or small domestic frictions—can explode into extreme emotions and result in physical violence.

On a broader level, the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) in a 2022 report shows that the risk of DV rises by about 35% in lower-middle-income rural households. The cases in Blitar, Lebong, and Asahan reflect the same pattern: poverty worsens conditions on one hand, while rural patriarchy reinforces the husband as the ‘moral and economic authority’ at home.

When these two factors converge, the risk of domestic violence increases.