An estimated 140 women and girls across the world die at the hands of their partner or family member every day, according to new global estimates on femicide by the UN.
The report by UN Women found 85,000 women and girls were killed intentionally by men in 2023, with 60% (51,100) of these deaths committed by someone close to the victim. The organisation said its figures showed that, globally, the most dangerous place for a woman to be was in her home, where the majority of women die at the hands of men.
Nyaradzayi Gumbonzvanda, UN Women’s deputy executive director, said: “What the data is telling us is that it is the private and domestic sphere’s of women’s lives, where they should be safest, that so many of them are being exposed to deadly violence.
“We see the numbers in this report as the tip of the iceberg,” she said, “because we know not all women’s deaths are recorded and not all causes of death are accurately recorded as femicides, and there were many communities where we couldn’t access any information.”
The UN global estimates on femicide, defined as the gender-related killing of women and girls, showed an overall decrease on the 89,000 intentional deaths of women and girls in 2022, but an increase in numbers killed by intimate partners and family members.
The data from the UN agency dedicated to gender equality and the empowerment of women showed that Africa recorded the highest rates of intimate and partner-related femicide, with an estimated 21,700 victims in 2023, followed by the Americas and then Oceania.
In Europe and the Americas, most women were killed by intimate partners, while elsewhere, close family members were the primary perpetrators.
UN Women said that available data for three countries – France, South Africa and Colombia – confirmed that a “significant share” of women killed by their intimate partners had previously reported some form of violence to the authorities before their death.
The report said that while men and women are victims of intimate partner or family violence, men accounted for 80% of all global homicide victims in 2023, but only 12% of these deaths were attributed to lethal violence within the family, compared with 60% of women.
However, the UN agency said its reporting on global femicide estimates was hampered by poor data collection by many countries around the world, and that there were few governments collecting accurate data on femicides committed outside the domestic sphere.
The data available showed that in France, 79% of female homicides were committed by intimate partners or other family members between 2019 and 2022, with other forms of femicide, such as violent crime or exploitation, accounting for 5% of total figures. In South Africa, data indicated that femicides outside the domestic sphere accounted for 9% of all female homicides in 2020-2021.
“While member states have increasingly adopted measures to address femicide in recent years, the accountability of countries’ efforts to fight gender-based killings is also measured by the quality and availability of their statistics on femicide,” said the report. “Significant efforts to reverse the negative trend in terms of data availability would thus increase government accountability for addressing violence against women.”
Women in countries including Turkey, Kenya, India and Mexico have taken to the streets to protest against rising femicide crimes this year, with more governments across the world pledging new laws to acknowledge and respond to the increasing numbers of women losing their lives.
