UNITED NATIONS: Last year, every 10 minutes a woman somewhere in the world was murdered by someone close to her, the UN said Monday, denouncing the lack of progress in the battle against feminicide.
Some 50,000 women and girls were killed by intimate partners or family members in 2024, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime and UN Women said in a report released to mark the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women.
The report states that 60% of women murdered worldwide were killed by partners or family members such as fathers, uncles, mothers and brothers. In comparison, 11% of male murder victims were killed by someone close to them.
The 50,000 figure, based on data from 117 countries, reduces to 137 women per day, or about one woman every 10 minutes, according to the report.
The total is slightly lower than the figure reported in 2023, although it does not indicate an actual decrease, according to the report, as it is largely due to differences in data availability from country to country.
Femicide continues to claim tens of thousands of women and girls’ lives each year, with no signs of improvement, and “the home remains the most dangerous place for women and girls in terms of risk of homicide,” the study notes.
No region in the world was free of cases of feminicide, but Africa again had the highest number last year, with around 22,000, according to the report.
“Femicides do not occur in isolation. They often fall on a continuum of violence that can begin with controlling behavior, threats and harassment, including online,” Sarah Hendricks, director of the Policy Division at UN Women, said in a statement.
The report says technological development has exacerbated some types of violence against women and girls and created others, such as non-consensual image sharing, doxxing and deepfake videos.
“We need the implementation of laws that recognize how violence manifests itself in the lives of women and girls, both online and offline, and that hold perpetrators accountable long before it becomes deadly,” Hendricks said.
