Demonstrators display the names of femicide victims during the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women in Bordeaux, southwestern France, on November 22, 2025. (Photo: ROMAIN PERROCHEAU / AFP via Getty Images)
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On 24 November 2025, marking the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) and UN Women released a report looking at the issue of femicide. The report estimated that approximately 50,000 women and girls were murdered in the private sphere (by intimate partners or family members). In 2024, about 60% of all intentional killings of women and girls were committed by someone in their family, an average of 137 women and girls.
Femicide is the most brutal and extreme form of violence against women and girls. These gender-motivated killings are often driven by stereotypical gender roles, discrimination against women and girls, unequal power relations between women and men, and harmful social norms. Despite ever-increasing awareness of the issue, femicide is still ubiquitous. The Statistical Framework for Measuring Gender-Based Killing of Women and Girls, developed by UNODC and UN Women, identifies three types of femicide: (a) intentional homicides of women and girls by partners; (b) intentional homicides of women and girls perpetrated by other family members; and (c) intentional homicides of women and girls perpetrated by perpetrators other than partners or other family members who meet other criteria.
While the 2024 data is marginally lower than 2023, this does not represent progress in prevention and is largely due to differences in data availability at the country level. Furthermore, as the report explains, femicide continues to affect women and girls everywhere in the world – no region is exempt. In 2024, Africa was the region with the highest number, with approximately 22,600 victims of intimate partner/family member femicide. Africa also continued to account for the highest number of victims of intimate partner/family member femicide relative to the size of its female population (3 victims per 100,000 in 2024). The Americas and Oceania recorded 1.5 and 1.4 victims per 100,000, respectively, and Asia and Europe about 0.7 and 0.5 victims per 100,000, respectively.
Commenting on the findings, Sarah Hendriks, Director of the UN Women’s Policy Department, emphasized that: “Femicides do not happen in isolation. They are often on a continuum of violence that can start with controlling behavior, threats and harassment, including online. The UN’s 16 Days campaign this year highlights that digital violence is often offline. cases, contribute to fatal harm, including femicide’. She added that “every woman and girl has the right to be safe in every part of her life and this requires systems that intervene early. To prevent these killings, we need laws that recognize how violence plays out in the lives of women and girls, both online and offline, and hold perpetrators accountable long before it becomes fatal.”
THE report highlights the issue of the global data gap, with fewer countries reporting femicide statistics. This will not change the fact that these crimes are being committed. The lack of evidence will only further cover up the crimes. To address femicide, every victim must be counted and every perpetrator must be brought to justice.
Similarly, more needs to be done to prevent femicides. Such preventive measures include targeted policies that address the specific forms of gender-based violence committed in the private sphere. Like the report emphasizes, “In many cases, femicides are the tragic end of a pattern of ongoing violence, meaning that with early and appropriate intervention they could have been prevented.” Common risk factors for intimate partner violence that could lead to femicide include “access to firearms, coercive control, prior history of violence and nonfatal strangulation, stalking, relationship breakup, and substance use, such as alcohol consumption by the perpetrator, combined with other underlying factors such as lack of social support and accumulation of stressful events.”
THE report calls for urgent and coordinated prevention, including strong legal frameworks, specialized justice responses, multi-agency risk assessment, survivor-centred services, gun restrictions and public campaigns challenging harmful rules.
