Every 10 minutes, partners and family members killed a woman intentionally in 2024, and that trend is growing, says the UN.

The latest report from the UN Office on Drugs and Crime and UN Women, released on the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women, shows that femicide is rising around the world.

The report found that in 2024, around 80,000 women and girls worldwide were killed intentionally by their intimate partners or other family members, including fathers, mothers, uncles and brothers.

The figure represents an average of 137 women or girls every day. One in four women journalists globally and a third of women parliamentarians in the Asia-Pacific have received online death threats, the report found.

In 2024, Africa recorded the largest number of female intimate partner and family-related killings with an estimated 22,600 victims (three victims per 100,000).

Current and former intimate partners are by far the most likely perpetrators of femicide, accounting for an average of 60 per cent of all family-related killings.

The UN said gender-related killings, known as femicide, are the most brutal and extreme manifestation of violence against women and girls.

Femicide is an intentional killing with a gender-related motivation. It is driven by discrimination against women and girls, unequal power relations, gender stereotypes or harmful social norms.

Femicide can be linked to harmful practices such as female genital mutilation or so-called honour killings, or the result of hate crimes linked to sexual orientation or gender identity. It is often connected with armed conflict, gangs, human trafficking and other forms of organised crime. Femicide is a global crisis that affects women and girls in every country.

UN Women says the numbers are “alarmingly high” but has warned that the true scale of femicide “is likely much higher” due to under-reporting. Women in public life, including politicians, journalists and human rights and environmental defenders, face escalating violence both online and offline.

Technology-facilitated violence, such as cyberstalking, coercive control and image-based abuse, can escalate offline and in some cases, lead to femicide.

The deaths of 81 women environmental defenders and 34 women human rights defenders were reported in 2022. Indigenous women also face disproportionate risks, and transgender women face rising targeted killings worldwide.

An increase in femicide is being driven by persistent gender inequality, discriminatory norms, and escalating violence in conflict and displacement settings, limited accountability, weak protection systems and online harassment further heighten risks. Crises, economic insecurity and shrinking civic spaces also intensify lethal violence against women and girls.

(NAN)