Every year around the world, one woman or girl is killed on behalf of her gender by an intimate partner or someone in their family at approximately every 10 minutes. An average of 66,000 women are violently murdered globally, accounting for approximately 17% of all victims of intentional homicides. In 2022, the number of women and girls murdered globally was nearly 89,000. According to a 2000 report by the
U.N. Population Fund (UNFPA), approximately 5,000 women are murdered each year in
honor killings and a girl dies to
female genital mutilation yearly every 12 minutes The rates of femicide differ depending on the specific country, but of the countries with the top 25 highest femicide rates, 50% are in Latin America, with number one being
El Salvador. Also included in the top 25 are seven European countries, three Asian countries, and one African country,
South Africa. Social beliefs and acceptability about gender based violence varies from country to country Data on femicide worldwide is poor, and often countries do not report gender differences in murder statistics. Many communities do not have access to resources or accurate data. In addition, reporting data on migrants is particularly scarce. High-income countries have seen more decreases in femicide than low-income countries.
Africa , South Africa following the
murder of Uyinene Mrwetyana, 2019 The continent varies in the manifestations of femicide depending on the country or region. In 2023, Africa recorded 21,000 cases which led to the highest rates and absolute numbers of intimate partner and family-related femicide, the rate is followed by the Americas, and then by Oceania. Asia recorded the second highest absolute numbers. Between 1990 and 2021, the number of female homicides in Africa rose from 12,570 to 19,769, though the age-standardized death rate decreased from 4.58 to 3.34 per 100,000 women, remaining nearly double the global average of 1.76 per 100,000 in 2021.
Burundi As of 2023, it has been noted there is a growing problem of femicide.
Kenya Although
Kenya has had an increase in femicide reports, there is a lack of proper data management systems. There is a lack of media representation in many counties, underreported murder cases and omission of details under the murder circumstances. As a result,
Nairobi,
Nakuru and
Kiambu have been reported as the leading counties with femicide victims. Africa Data Hub analyzed 930 female murders between 2016 and 2017 in Kenya, with 628 of them meeting the
United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC)'s definition of femicide, with the highest femicide specific cases occurring in 2024, totaling to 127 from 82 in 2023. Femicide Count reported that there were 160 cases of femicide in 2024 with the highest month being January. In 10 December 2024, thousands of people, mostly women, marched in the capital city, Nairobi, in protest against a wave of femicides. Some smaller groups also marched in other towns. The main demand was for the government to take action. Despite the protest being peaceful, the police used tear gas to disperse the group in Nairobi. At least 3 activist protesters were detained. According to
UN Women, South Africa has five times higher than the global average of femicide rates.
Women for Change (WFC), an
NGO dedicated to combating
gender-based violence (GBV) and femicide (GBVF), noted that 5,578 women were killed between April 2023 and March 2024, with femicide rising 33.8% year on year. "The sad reality within
South Africa when it comes to GBVF is that we have a conviction rate of 12%," WFC's national spokesperson, Cameron Kasambala said, claiming that at least 86% of the time nothing was done when victims of GBVF reported cases to the police. In 2019, President
Cyril Ramaphosa described South Africa as one of "the most unsafe places in world to be a woman". GBVF had been declared a national crisis in 2019. In November 2025 during the G20 Summit, The National Disaster Management Centre (NDMC) upgraded GBVF to a
national disaster. She defines female infanticide as "part of a crime of gender", which she refers to as "social femicide", and relates it to the broader problem of
gender inequality in Chinese society. Furthermore, daughters became liabilities, as gender was also crucial to the system of ancestor worship, in which only sons were allowed to carry out ritual sacrifices. Thus, "if a couple failed to produce a son, its crucial links to the past and future were broken". These included
female infanticide, the killing of girls under six years through starvation and violence, the killing of women due to
forced abortions, so-called
honor killings,
dowry murders, and
Witch-hunts. Many of the femicides in
India are perpetrated against girls. Despite progressive legal reforms in many parts of the country, strong patriarchal values are maintained, and help perpetuate the subordination of women. According to the
Special Rapporteur on violence against women for the
Human Rights Council, key factors behind gender-motivated killings of women in Asia are the high level of importance placed on women's
chastity and their subordination in the greater society. However, there have been research studies analysing femicide policy, specifically in relation to India, that have found "the criminalization of sex selection has not been successful".
Iran During 2021–2024, around 180 women reportedly were murdered by their husbands mostly honor killings. The bill against violence on women was passed in 2023 after a decade in government.
Nepal Suicide is the leading cause of death for
Nepalese women in the reproductive age group, with causes ranging from domestic abuse, forced marriage, casting out of widows, and lack of property rights. The rise in violence towards women has made women fearful. In 2019, The South Korean government released the 2019 Domestic Violence Survey Study that found that only 27.6 percent of women over the age of 13 feel society is safe for them. The study also found that women accounted for 98 percent of victims in intimate partner femicide (domestic violence) cases. In 2019 32,000 sex crimes against women were reported; that is 12,000 more cases than in 2010. All the while domestic violence cases have reached 50,000 in 2019 compared to 6,800 cases in 2011. While these numbers may not be completely accurate; it is estimated that there are more femicide, and intimate partner femicide cases not being reported due to Confucianist influences on South Korean society. Confucianism believes women should be subordinate to men and assumes women's status as inferior from men. These values also hold that women have only three roles: Daughter, wife, and mother and that women must obey the head of the family, that is to say her father before marriage and her husband after marriage. South Korea's traditional patriarchal culture and values assign strict roles to female members, as well as their strong belief that a woman's place should be with her family no matter what, cause women to be wary of reporting violence towards them due to fear of bringing shame to the family or affecting the family' social status. In a study focusing on the experiences of 14 female victims of intimate partner femicide in getting help with domestic violence found that victims didn't talk to their family or sought them out for support. Only one participant escaped their abusive relationship because their parents saw the bruises and called the police. Victims were scared to talk to their families. They were scared that their parents would get angry and be saddened by seeing their daughters get abused. Additionally, it is also taboo for women to talk about their romantic relationships with their parents. In the study, four victims chose the police as a support to escape their abuser. They decided to call the police when the relationship became a risk for their health. Two out of the four victims shared their negative experiences with the police. The police refused to get involved because they thought that what they were experiencing were normal relationship conflicts. These victims saw that current laws in South Korea are inadequate for protecting them from domestic femicide victims. They were deeply frustrated about it and they felt anxious and scared since they felt no one could protect them. Even though this law protects victims it is limited since it only protects married couples and does not address couples who are not married and face intimate partner violence. Olivia Shieber, a senior program manager of foreign and defense policy studies, describes Korean courts as lenient with sex crime punishments. In 2013, the Korean Supreme court upheld the country's first spousal rape conviction which is something in which South Korea was lagging behind when compared to other first world countries. It wasn't until the year 2020 when the age of consent was raised from 13 to 16, with a stipulation that the perpetrator must be 19 or older to be prosecuted for sex crimes against victims between the age of 13 and 16. Additionally, the fact that just 30% of judges and less than 4% of police personnel are women clearly affects how crimes of this sort are handled by the Korean judicial system. Even in cases where prosecutors successfully prosecute a defendant for a sex offense, the offenders are usually given a suspended sentence. Additionally, due to the country's strict legal definitions, it is still challenging to prove rape and other sex crimes in South Korea and some defendants have even exploited South Korea's tough defamation laws to sue their alleged victims for defamation making victims scared to come forward. Ultimately, women that face intimate partner violence or femicide in Korea are left feeling isolated and disenfranchised, neglected by the legal system and socially outcast while having to increasingly worry about femicide rates rising.
Turkey A gender-based discriminatory notion of honor is sometimes the cause of serious cases of health deterioration or mutilation among women in Turkey. According to the
Report on Custom and Honor Killings by the country's
General Directorate of Security, 1,028 custom and
honor killings were committed between the years of 2003 and 2007. It is important to note, however, that according to the World Data Bank, femicide rates in Turkey were 0.9 women murdered due to violence against women per 100k women. Which ranks it about the same femicide rate as Istanbul-convention
ratifiers such as Germany & Austria, but still significantly higher than most of the other ratifiers. Since 2019, Turkeys femicide rate have seen a significant drop of 44.9%. According to the data of the
General Directorate of Security covering killings in Turkey until 2007, honor killings happen predominantly in the Southeastern part of the country. The rates of murderers born in Eastern and Southeastern
Anatolia are much higher than murderers born in other regions. With 24% of the murderers born in Southeastern Anatolia and 21% in Eastern Anatolia, they share the top spot. While in comparison, only 8% of the murderers are born in the
Marmara region. Even though that region has the highest rate of honor killings, which means that the killings are primarily committed by people born outside that region. The reason behind this is the fact that honor killings are still receiving support in Eastern and Southeastern Anatolia. According to a survey in
Diyarbakir, a city in Southeastern Anatolia, 40% of the respondents supported honor killing. In some court cases this has led the court to decide to send the entire family to prison. For example, in 2009, an entire Kurdish family was sent to prison for life, because they were involved in the honor killing of their daughter, who got pregnant after being raped. In 2020, 300 women died as a result of femicide in Turkey, which is 174 (36%) less than the year before It is important to note that the source started differentiating between confirmed femicides and suspicious deaths in 2020, so the more representative numbers to compare are: 474 in 2019 and 471 in 2020, a decrease of about 0,5% . According to the same source, suspicious deaths have been rising for the past years. Totaling the numbers from confirmed and suspicious deaths in 2021 497 have been killed, in 2020 471 have been killed and in 2019 474 have been killed. In March 2021, via presidential decree, the Turkish government made the decision to leave the Istanbul convention, making it the first and only country in the Council of Europe to have withdrawn from any international human rights convention. This has sparked outrage in the population, as according to polls, only 26% of the population voted in favor of leaving. In the past the president has stated, that the women's rights movement is diverting women from their original roles as mothers and wives, while also normalizing tolerance to homosexuality. National women's rights organizations, who had been criticizing lack of implementation of the convention for years, now have concerns about rising femicide rates in Turkey. Seven women were killed by current or former partners in one day in 2024.
Australia In 2019, a recent statistic from the
Australian Institute of Criminology indicated that on average, one woman a week is murdered in an act of femicide in
Australia.
Europe In Europe, agencies have funded initiatives on gender and violence but not specifically on femicide. Research is in its infancy and uncoordinated. A COST Action IS1206 Available data are limited:
Eurostat covers only 20 countries and there are discrepancies in the way in which the data is collected. According to available data in
Western Europe, the average annual rate is 0.4 victims of femicide for every 100,000 women. The worst situations are found in
Montenegro,
Lithuania, and
Latvia. In most countries, the partner is the most common perpetrator. However, there are exceptions: in Lithuania and
Bosnia and Herzegovina, most femicides are committed by family members. Also, while male victims of homicide have been in a sharp decline in recent years, the number of women murdered in Europe, not necessarily at the hands of a partner or family member, remains constant, with a slight increase from 2013 to 2015. From 2013 to 2017, 30 European countries joined a COST (
Cooperation on Science and Technology) project called "femicide across Europe.
The Istanbul Convention was a gathering of multiple independent states who had a common goal of acknowledging and addressing femicide. However, the convention "is not a treaty, and not legally binding for all states", and thus is not an official policy.
France Depending on the sources, between 122 and 149 women were murdered in
France in 2019 by their partners or ex-partners.
Germany Germany has one of the highest absolute femicide numbers in Europe.
Italy Statistics of femicide in
Italy are reported by year (1995–2019) by the independent Women NGO. On the 25th of November, 2025, the Italian parliament passed a bill explicitly classifying femicide as a distinct crime. It was introduced into the country's criminal code with the penalty of life imprisonment.
Ireland Statistics of Femicide in
Ireland are reported by the Women's Aid NGO.
Spain Statistics and structure of femicide in
Spain are reported by year (2010–2019).
Switzerland The research project
Stop Femicide reports that in
Switzerland, one woman is killed every two weeks by a man she knows – typically a husband, partner, ex-partner, or male relative. At least one more woman each week survives an attempted femicide. There is no official government body that systematically records femicides or maintains its own statistics on gender-based killings. This lack of data is criticized by researchers, politicians, and civil society groups, as it makes it more difficult to analyze, prevent, and strategically combat violence against women.
United Kingdom Interest in reporting and analyzing levels of femicide in the
United Kingdom has grown in recent years, and several national organizations provide support In 2021, a campaign began in the UK led by
The Observer and the Femicide Census to better identify femicide, to improve the knowledge of it, and to encourage improved methods to end it. This included raising awareness of the data produced by the Femicide Census The organisation, led by
Karen Ingala Smith and Clarrie O'Callaghan, justifies it as bringing data together in this way "significantly improves upon currently available data by providing detailed comparable data about femicides in the UK since 2009, including demographic and social factors and the methods men selected to kill women. By collating femicides, we can see that these killings are not isolated incidents, and many follow repeated patterns." those killed by partners and ex-lovers, or those killed during lockdown. On average, in the UK, a woman is killed by a man every three days, or by a current or former partner, every four days. The data is not gathered in Scotland. Data published in 2022 shows that in year ending March 2021, 177 women were murdered in England and Wales (for comparison, 416 men were killed in this period). Where there was a known suspect, 92% of the women were killed by men. In 2023, Labour MP for domestic abuse,
Jess Phillips, received significant criticism from gender critical activists for naming the trans-girl,
Brianna Ghey as a victim of femicide, stating that this inclusion was "an insult to the memory of the women and children tragically killed this year". In 2024, there were growing concerns of black femicides within the UK as
black women and girls in recent statistics were more likely than those of other races to be killed by their partners, family members or non-intimate people in
Greater London; they faced not only higher rates but also formed the majority of victims. 2022 data from the
Metropolitan Police showed that Black women made up 43% of femicide victims despite just 14% of the London population being Black. This was a significant increase from 2021, when just 12% of femicide victims were Black. The figures of black femicide rose to 62% in 2023.
Southall Black Sisters and the Femicide Census had been critical of the Metropolitan Police and mayor,
Sadiq Khan, for undermining such killings targeting exclusively black women. In 2025, recent studies from the Femicide Census indicated that there had been more mothers
killed by their sons than women by strangers. These types of femicides are hidden and the census said that there is still insufficient help available for women and girls facing violence from their families, including mothers by their sons. Out of 121 women killed by men in 2022, 12% were by sons whilst 11% were by someone unknown.
Lithuania Lithuania is among the few countries in Europe in which family-related femicides (such as fathers, mothers, brothers, or uncles) outnumber intimate partners.
Latin America , 2007.
Feminists in Latin America have been among the first to adopt the term
femicide, referring to the
female homicides in
Ciudad Juárez,
Mexico. This term inspired feminists in Latin America to organize anti-feminicide groups to challenge this social injustice towards women. According to Julia Estela Monárrez-Fragoso of the Colegio de la Frontera Norte based in Ciudad Juárez, victims are often blamed for being out late at night, or for hanging around "questionable" areas, such as discotecas or nightclubs. Between 2000 and 2010, more than five thousand Guatemalan women and girls were murdered. Guatemala's historical record reveals a long history of acceptance of gendered violence, and the
military,
government, and judiciary's role in normalizing misogyny. In a Report on the Violations of Women's Rights in Guatemala by a
United Nations Human Rights Committee, the state's failure to enforce laws protecting women from femicide is seen as highly problematic. The report argues that enforcing laws against the murder of women is a low priority of state governments, due to patriarchal beliefs, and assumptions about the role of women in society. Various activists and scholars, such as Monárrez, have argued that connections exist between the femicides and neoliberal policies, namely
North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). They believe that the treaty has served to open trade borders, and to increase foreign investment targeted at manufacturing low-cost garments in
maquiladoras. and high violence and crime rates in these countries also contribute to this issue. There is a lack of an organized system to record information and statistical data to support this issue.
Machismo, a history of civil wars, and other cultural influences can also contribute to this issue, specifically in Latin America. Torture, mutilation, defacement, sexual assault, and the dumping of bodies is a common trend with femicide. It has been observed that many of the women killed in Ciudad Juárez are young mothers who migrate to this region seeking employment in maquiladoras. Other scholars, such as historians Steven Volk and Marian Schlotterbeck, hypothesize that there may be a "macho backlash" behind these killings: "Certainly male egos, of fathers and would-be boyfriends, must suffer some deflation from this dramatic change in the economic influence of these young women." In 2015,
Mexican Supreme Court required the police to reopen and investigate a murder case from a femicide "perspective". The case of Mariana Lima Buenida, was reopened almost thirteen years later. She was found dead in her home on 28 June 2010, at the time her husband, a police officer, insisted she committed suicide.
Irinea Buendia, Mariana's mother, fought and advocated for her daughter's case. The reopening of the case would lead to justice after more than a decade, a monumental moment in Mexico's judicial history that acknowledges the first case of femicide within the Mexican Supreme Court. However, there have been some actions taken to address this issue. The criminalization of femicide and various laws passed in specific countries have aimed to stop this problem. In addition, the United Nations has taken a role in stopping this with a commission that calls for action to be taken. There is a growing social awareness around this issue with #NiUnaMenos (Not One Woman Less) or #NiUnaMas (Not One More Woman). Lastly, female friendly urban zones have been created as a concrete solution. These zones include
female-only transportation, and government centers offering services specifically for women. Central American policymakers have experimented with creating "female-friendly urban zones". "Pink" public transportation networks have been established in Mexico, Brazil, El Salvador, and Guatemala to provide women-only forms of public transportation to stem
sexual harassment, and to provide safety for women. These efforts have received substantial praise and criticism. They note how some feminist movements in Latin America lie in opposition to feminicide, particularly in their failure to acknowledge how this same violence impacts groups beyond cis-women; including trans women, gender non-conforming, and the queer community. The Paragraph 2-A, of art. 121, complements the section, by stating that there are reasons of female condition when the crime involves domestic and family violence or contempt or discrimination against women. The penalty for this crime is 12 to 30 years in prison. On the other hand, despite the increased rigor of criminal law, in a survey carried out by the newspaper Folha de S. Paulo, in 2019, there were 1,310 murders resulting from domestic violence or motivated by gender, characteristics of femicide. It was an increase of 7.2% compared to 2018.
Colombia Colombia has followed 16 other Latin American countries by passing a law defining and punishing femicide for being a specific crime. On 6 July 2015, the government of Colombia passed a law that legally defines femicide as a crime with 20 to 50 years of jail time. This new law is named after Rosa Elvira Cely, a Colombian woman who was raped and murdered in 2012. Colombia prosecuted a
transgender woman's murder as a femicide for the first time in 2018, sentencing Davinson Stiven Erazo Sánchez to twenty years in a psychiatric center for "aggravated femicide" a year after he killed Anyela Ramos Claros, a transgender woman.
El Salvador In El Salvador, an endeavor has been made to create multiple government centers that house many gender-specific services in one place, to cut down on commute time, and to increase the physical safety of women as they seek services such as counseling, child care, and reproductive health. Few offenders are ever actually convicted for the specific crime of femicide, and there are only three public prosecution offices in the entire country able to deal with the issue of femicide. In fact, only 127 convictions in 2010 occurred for female violence even though 46,000 cases overall were registered. Also, from 2000 to 2008, 98 percent of all femicide cases have remained in
impunity. Some feminists argue that the culture in Guatemala is to blame. They cite that many male judges and other male government officials are sympathetic to the view that men's actions are justified, because they remain within the private sphere of the home. Attorney Romeo Silverio Gonzalez argued for this viewpoint when he stated that the new laws of Decree 22 were unconstitutional. He said that the laws were in contradiction to the private affairs of marriage. Attorney General Claudia Paz countered his viewpoint, ultimately defending the laws by justifying their existence because they protect women's rights. Overall, the legislation of these new laws has helped Guatemala improve the awareness of femicide and reporting of the crime, but enforcement and justice for femicide still have not been achieved. Femicide as the socially tolerated murder of women in Guatemala relies on the presence of systematic impunity, historically rooted gender inequalities, and the pervasive normalization of violence as a social relation. In 2018, "93 percent of crimes were either not reported or not investigated." One activist, Natalia Reyes, reported that only 8 percent of femicides in Mexico are punished. Almost 35,000 people were murdered in 2019, Mexico's most violent year on record. Additionally, in 2012, Mexico was ranked as the 16th country in the world with the highest rates of femicides. In August 2021, a total of 108 femicides occurred in Mexico, the highest since 2019. In 2016, Mexico had a rate of female homicides of 4.6 femicides per 100,000, and there were a total of 2,746 female deaths with the presumption of homicide, but that has more than doubled in the past 5 years. On average, about 10 women are killed everyday. In this year, the top three states with the highest rates of female deaths with the presumption of homicide were
Colima (with 16.3 deaths per 100,000 women),
Guerrero (13.1 per 100,000), and
Zacatecas (9.7 per 100,000).
North America United States Femicide in the
United States accounts for the deaths of more than five women daily, and 70% of the total deaths of women among high-income countries. One of the largest predictors of femicide in the United States is the appearance of physical abuse, which was found in 79% of all femicide cases in
North Carolina.
Gun availability in the United States has also had a substantial effect on femicide, correlating to 67.9% of deaths in a study by Karen D. Stout. Also, reporting of female victims of femicide in the US is stymied, due to the assumption that female victims are not an anomaly, but are driven by their perceived vulnerability and passivity.
Canada Proper statistics of femicide in
Canada can be difficult to come across, since possible acts of femicide are regularly labelled as the killing of a spouse. However, femicide is a widespread violent act that takes place in countries all over the world, and Canada is no exception. In 2019, there was a total of 678 homicides Canada-wide, of these cases 144 of the victims were female. Additionally, the rate at which female victims were killed by a spouse or intimate partner, was over eight times greater than the number of males killed by a spouse or intimate partner. Yet the research indicates that certain ethnic groups are at a greater risk for femicide compared to the rest of the population. Sterilization policies were implemented as a way to reduce the size and influence of Indigenous communities, resulting in there being about 1,200 cases of forced or coerced sterilization, that directly targeted the reproductive rights and properties of Indigenous women and girls. Exclusionary politics and legal discrimination throughout the history of Canada, means that the violence faced by Indigenous women and girls has gone unacknowledged, serving to further state-controlled colonial power over Indigenous peoples. The perpetrator is a self-described "
incel", whose goal was to exact revenge on women, after self-perceived
social rejection.
United Nations In 2013, the
United Nations General Assembly updated their policy by recognizing that "gender-related killing of women and girls was criminalized in some countries as 'femicide' or 'feminicide', and has been incorporated as such into national legislation in those countries." Currently, Dr.
Dubravka Šimonović is the special rapporteur to the UN. She has been an advocate of anti-femicide policy implementation. She has presented the UN with reports such as "Modalities for the establishment of femicides/gender-related killings". Dr. Šimonović has also proposed a "femicide watch" program to monitor femicide practices across the globe. The goal of Simonovic's academic program is to analyze data on femicide cases, to identify risk factors and any issues in public policy. == Impact of the COVID-19 pandemic ==