Every 10 minutes a woman is the victim of femicide around the world, according to a UN report

Nearly 85,000 women and girls were killed – intentionally – in 2023. Of these tens of thousands of victims, 60% of them were victims of their partner or a member of their family. The latest United Nations (UN) report, made public this Monday, November 25, warns of the « alarming level » of the number of feminicides committed in a year. Established by the Vienna Office of the United Nations on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) and the New York organization UN Women, the report announces that 140 women/girls were killed every day by a loved one, an average of one killed every 10 minutes in the world.

64% of female victims of homicide murdered by their partner in Europe

« Home remains the most dangerous place” for women, notes the United Nations survey. « Women and girls around the world continue to be affected by this extreme form of gender-based violence and no region is excludedrecalls the report. The phenomenon crosses borders and affects all social categories and age groups. » In 2023, 64% of female victims of homicide were murdered by their intimate partner in Europe and 58% in America (including North and South). In the rest of the world, women and girls are more likely to be killed by family members (59%) than by their intimate partners (41%).

In France, for example, during the period 2019-2022, 79% of feminicides were committed by intimate partners or other family members, while other forms of these homicides accounted for a further 5%. Similarly, research carried out in South Africa indicates that feminicides outside the domestic sphere represent 9% of the total.

On the American continent and in Europe, feminicides are mainly perpetrated by the partner, unlike the rest of the world. Africa is the region with the highest number of victims of femicide, with an average of 2.9 victims per 100,000 inhabitants in the year 2023. Likewise, America and Oceania also recorded rates high, with respectively 1.6 and 1.5 victims per 100,000 inhabitants. Asia and Europe are just behind, with respective averages of 0.8 and 0.6 victims per 100,000 inhabitants.

« These motives are rooted in societal norms and stereotypes that view women as subordinate to men, as well as discrimination against women and girls and inequality of opportunity.warns the report published on the occasion of the International Day to Combat Violence Against Women. Above all, the testimonies and data collected demonstrate the few actions taken to stem this – systemic – scourge on a global scale.

Expected “legal responses”

Already in danger within the home, women must deal with sexist and patriarchal reflexes within the institutions with the power to defend them. « Many victims reported physical, sexual or psychological violence before their deathwe can read. Which suggests that many murders could be avoided. »

The UN particularly highlights the need to have « legal answers » specific: « A number of countries, particularly in Latin America, have made femicide a special offense in their national legislation. Other countries have introduced aggravating circumstances for homicide offenses under the femicide due to the nature of the relationship between the victim and the perpetrator and the specific context related to the intentional homicide of a woman. »

The Mexican sociologist Estela Monarrez Fragoso, who works at the Colegio de la Frontera Norte, in the city of Juarez, estimated, in a survey entitled Systemic sexual feminicide: constant historical impunity in Ciudad Juárez, victims and perpetrators and published in 2018, that femicide brings together « all the elements of the unequal relationship between the sexes: the generic superiority of men compared to the generic subordination of women, misogyny, control and sexism. »

She adds: « Not only is a woman's biological body murdered, but what the cultural construction of her body has signified is also murdered, with the passivity and tolerance of a masculinized state. » Femicides therefore continue to increase around the world, while a response from States to fight against them is desperately awaited.