Femicides in 2023: Global Estimates of Intimate Partner/Family Member Femicides

FOCUS

The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) and UN Women jointly published this research brief on November 25, 2024. It presents global estimates of intimate partner and family-related femicides which occurred in the year 2023. The report builds on the existing UN statistical framework for measuring gender-related killings to provide standardised data across regions.

The findings reveal that in 2023, approximately 51,100 women and girls were killed by intimate partners or family members worldwide, equivalent to one woman or girl murdered every 10 minutes by someone they knew and trusted. While men are more likely to be killed in public spaces, women face the greatest danger in their own homes, with around 60 per cent of female homicides occurring in private spaces.

The report examines femicide patterns through detailed case studies from France, South Africa and Colombia, highlighting both progress and persistent challenges in prevention efforts. It particularly emphasises the crisis of disappearing data, with only about half as many countries reporting femicide statistics in 2023 compared to 2020. The document also analyses effective policy responses, from risk assessment protocols to stronger laws and multi-agency review mechanisms.

The 36-page brief is organised into seven key sections: Key findings (Section 1); Introduction (Section 2); Intimate partner/family member femicide in 2023 (Section 3); Trends in intimate partner/family member femicide (Section 4); Homicide in the private sphere has a disproportionate impact on women and girls (Section 5); Preventing femicide (Section 6); and Producing femicide data: an unmet challenge (Section 7).

    FACTOIDS

  1. In 2023, intimate partners or relatives killed about 51,100 women and girls globally, representing around three-fifths of all female homicide victims that year, equivalent to 140 lives lost daily.

  2. African nations suffered the worst femicide burden, with 21,700 deaths and a rate of 2.9 such homicides per 100,000 women. Asia followed with 18,500 cases and the Americas reported 8,300.

  3. The Americas had the highest rate of femicide (1.6 per 100,000 female population) after Africa in 2023 and was almost at the same level as in 2010. Europe, on the other hand, had the lowest rate (0.6) and saw a 20 per cent decline since 2010. However, subregional trends in both areas show considerable variance. A lack of year-on-year data from Africa, Asia and Oceania makes it difficult to map trends in these regions.

  4. Women aged 26-35 years faced the highest femicide risk in France, while most killers were in the 36-45 years age group. French data revealed that while more than a third of femicide victims had previously been abused by their partners, only about seven per cent of the male partners had a restraining order against them.

  5. The availability of femicide statistics plummeted by half between 2020 and 2023, with just 37 nations submitting complete data by the latter year, the report states.

  6. The report emphasises that femicide is often the culmination of repeated instances of gender-based violence and thus preventable through correctly timed interventions at various levels including individual, interpersonal, community and society. One of these is addressing social norms through educational curricula. Another prevention measures includes legally defining femicide as a special offence, enhancing data systems by assigning specialised units to gather data on attacks against women and running public campaigns condemning behaviours that encourage and perpetuate gender-based violence.


    Focus and Factoids by Sai Matekar.

     

    PARI Library’s health archive project is part of an initiative supported by the Azim Premji University to develop a free-access repository of health-related reports relevant to rural India.

AUTHOR

United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) and United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women (UN Women)

COPYRIGHT

United Nations

PUBLICATION DATE

25 Nov, 2024

TAGS

#gender-based-violence #gender-equality #women's-health #femicide

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