In 2023, a woman or girl was intentionally killed by family 140 times a day, or once every 10 minutes, according to the most recent global femicide report released by the United Nations (UN) Women and the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC).
Of the approximately 85,000 femicide cases recorded last year, 60.2 percent were committed by a family member or an intimate partner. Family members constituted 55 percent of the perpetrators in these cases, the 45 percent by partners.
The numbers suggest that “home remains the most dangerous place for women and girls in terms of the risk of lethal victimization,” the report states. Asia recorded around 18,500 partner or family femicide cases in 2023, but the error band in the report shows that the actual regional estimate ranges from 16,200 to 20,700.
The report notes that although there were around 48,800 partner or family femicide cases in 2022, the change in statistics is “not indicative of an actual increase as it is largely due to differences in data availability at the country level.”
Lack of Data
According to the Philippine Statistics Authority, 17.5 percent of Filipino women aged 15-49 have experienced forms of physical, sexual, and emotional violence by a spouse or a partner in 2022. However, there is no data regarding deaths caused by gender-based violence committed by partners or relatives.
Many other countries lack similar data. While in 2020, 75 countries collected and reported data on annual femicide cases, by 2023, only 34 countries had this data available. The UN report stressed the need for improved data collection in addressing violence against women. It stated in its key findings that “member states have increasingly adopted measures to address femicide in recent years, but the accountability of countries’ efforts to fight gender-related killings is also measured by the quality and availability of their statistics on femicide.”
As far back as 2015, UN’s Special Rapporteur on violence against women and girls Dubravka Simonovic called for the establishment of a global femicide watch, which aims to “focus on femicide prevention through the collection of comparable data on femicide rates at national, regional and global levels.”
