Protesters display the names of victims of femicide during the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women in Bordeaux, south-western France, on November 22, 2025. (Photo credit: ROMAIN PERROCHEAU / AFP via Getty Images)
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On November 24, 2025, marking the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) and UN Women published a report looking into the issue of femicide. The report estimated that around 50,000 women and girls were killed in the private sphere (by intimate partners or family members). In 2024, about 60% of all intentional killings of women and girls were by someone in their family, an average of 137 women and girls.
Femicide is the most brutal and extreme manifestation of violence against women and girls. These killings, with a gender-related motivation, are often driven by stereotyped gender roles, discrimination towards women and girls, unequal power relations between women and men, and harmful social norms. Despite the ever-growing awareness of the issue, femicide continues to be omnipresent. The Statistical Framework for Measuring the Gender-Related Killing of Women and Girls, developed by UNODC and UN Women, identifies three types of femicide: (a) intentional homicides of women and girls perpetrated by intimate partners; (b) intentional homicides of women and girls perpetrated by other family members; and (c) intentional homicides of women and girls committed by perpetrators other than intimate partners or other family members and meet other criteria.
While the 2024 data is marginally lower than in 2023, this does not mean progress in the area of prevention, and is largely due to differences in data availability at the country level. Furthermore, as explained in the report, femicide continues to affect women and girls everywhere in the world – no region is excluded. In 2024, Africa was the region with the highest number, with an estimated 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 some 0.7 and 0.5 victims per 100,000, respectively.
Sarah Hendriks, Director of U.N. Women’s Policy Division, commenting on the findings, emphasized that: “Femicides don’t happen in isolation. They often sit on a continuum of violence that can start with controlling behavior, threats, and harassment, including online. The United Nations’ 16 Days campaign this year underscores that digital violence often doesn’t stay online. It can escalate offline and, in the worst cases, contribute to lethal harm, including femicide.” She added that, “Every woman and girl has the right to be safe in every part of her life, and that requires systems that intervene early. To prevent these killings, we need the implementation of laws that recognize how violence manifests across the lives of women and girls, both online and offline, and hold perpetrators to account well before it turns deadly.”
The report stresses the issue of a gap in global data, with fewer countries reporting femicide statistics. This will not change the fact that these crimes are being committed. The lack of data will only further cover the crimes. In order to address femicide, every victim must be counted, and every perpetrator must be brought to justice.
Equally, more needs to be done to prevent femicides. Such preventive measures include targeted policies that address the specific forms of gender-based violence perpetrated in the private sphere. As the report emphasizes, “In many cases, femicides are the tragic end to a pattern of ongoing violence, meaning that with the timely and appropriate intervention, they could be prevented.” Common risk factors for intimate partner violence that could lead to femicide include “access to firearms, coercive control, previous history of violence and non-fatal strangulation, stalking, relationship separation 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-centered services, firearms restrictions, and public campaigns that challenge harmful norms.