An average of 137 women across the world are killed by a partner or family member every day, according to new data released by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC):-
- They say it makes “the home the most likely place for a woman to be killed”.
- More than half of the 87,000 women killed in 2017 were reported as dying at the hands of those closest to them.
- Of that figure, approximately 30,000 women were killed by an intimate partner and another 20,000 by a relative.
- BBC 100 Women wanted to find out more about the women behind the numbers. We spent October monitoring reports of gender-related killings of women on the first day of that month. We will share some of their stories below and find out more about how these killings were reported.
Male homicide rates still higher:-
- The data collected by UNODC highlights that “men are around four times more likely than women to lose their lives as a result of intentional homicide”.
- The UN indicates that men accounted for eight out of 10 homicide victims worldwide.
- However, the same report suggests that more than eight out of 10 victims of homicides committed by intimate partners are female.
- “Intimate partner violence continues to take a disproportionately heavy toll on women,” the report states.
Forty-seven women, 21 countries, one day:-
- The UN statistics summarise the findings for 2017 based on homicide statistics provided by government sources. The figures for “gender-related killings of women and girls”, or “femicide”, are collated using the criteria of intimate partner/family-related homicide.
- BBC 100 Women and BBC Monitoring set out to find out more about the women behind the numbers.
- We monitored press coverage of women killed by another person on 1 October 2018 around the world. Our regional specialists counted 47 women reported killed, apparently for gender-related reasons, in 21 different countries. Most of these killings are still being investigated.