Gender-related killings of women and girls (femicide/feminicide)
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Research Center, this mechanism should collect data on all femicide and attempted femicide cases, analyse
response of all institutions (social care system, judiciary, prosecution, police, health care system and
service providers), give recommendations to authorities about improving the prevention system and
inform the public about steps taken by the authorities to prevent and eradicate femicide. The Albanian
government expressed its commitment in its input to the UN Special Rapporteur on Violence against
Women and Girls to provide information about the implementation of the Femicide Watch initiative, and
the Montenegrin government in a statement by the prime minister on defining femicide as a criminal act.
The programme partners systematized the available data on femicide from all responsible courts, police
departments, justice system data and media monitoring, proposed a data collection model as there was
no central evidence systems, and worked to put this issue on the political and public agenda. The
establishment of a femicide watch has now become a topic for wider consultative processes, and the word
‘femicide’ has entered daily use by authorities, politicians, the media.
19
(UN Women)
Limited data availability means that the estimation of over-time trends in female intimate
partner/family-related homicides is not possible in the other world regions, namely in Africa, Asia, and
Oceania. However, evidence from several populous Asian and African countries with available trend
data suggest that the situation might be improving gradually, with a moderate decline in gender-related
killings of women and girls over time. For example, in India, violent deaths related to dowry payments,
accusations of witchcraft and other gender-related factors have been slowly declining over the past
decade (Figure 16). A similar trend can be observed in neighbouring Pakistan, which recorded some
reductions in female victims of “honour crimes” since 2011, with a slight trend reversal since 2018
(Figure 17). In South Africa, estimates of female intimate partner killings from three national studies
across 18 years (1999, 2009, and 2017), suggest that the female intimate partner homicide rate was
halved over this time period (see Box below).
20
Importantly, downward trends are by no means observed across all of Africa and Asia. In several African
and Asian countries with available time series data on female intimate partner/family-related
homicides (for example in Afghanistan, Algeria, Morocco, and Uganda), the data are not indicative of
clear trends (Figure 18). Finally, although the link between the total number of female victims and the
number of female intimate partner/family-related homicides is not always direct,
21
trend data on the
total number of female homicide victims (both inside and outside the home) from several populous
Asian countries, including the Philippines, Türkiye and Japan, show reductions since 2010 (Figure 19).
Taken together, the available trend data therefore suggest that the situation for women and girls might
be improving, particularly in Asia.
In Oceania, Australia and New Zealand are the only two countries with reliable trend data on female
intimate partner/family-related homicides. Australia has seen some reductions in the number of female
intimate partner/family-related homicides in recent years, while New Zealand has experienced an
19
E.g. Vice-president of the National Parliament of the Republic of Serbia supported the initiative for the establishment of femicide
watch in Serbia (more on Потпредседник Народне скупштине др Зоран Лутовац разговарао са представницама удружења
FemPlatz (ds.org.rs), 14.10.2022); Parliamentary group “Zajedno” in the National Parliament of Serbia supported the initiative for the
establishment of the femicide watch in Serbia (more on Stranka Zajedno danas se sastala sa predstavnicama udruženja građanki
FemPLatz – ZAJEDNO – zeleno leva politička stranka (zajedno-moramo.rs), 14.10.2022); Prime Minister of Montenegro Statement to
criminalize femicide (more on Abazović: Iniciraćemo uvrštanje femicida kao posebnog krivičnog djela (www.gov.me)); Input of the
Government of Albania to the UN Special Rapporteur on violence against women and girls, its causes and consequences about the
progress in establishing femicide watch (more on OHCHR | Femicide Watch initiative (2021)).
20
Abrahams, N. et. al., Decrease in Femicide in South Africa: Three National Studies Across 18 Years. Research brief, South African
Medical Research Council (2022).
21
See Data Matters 3 for a discussion of trends in non-intimate partner/family-related female homicides and how they related to
trends in intimate partner/family-related female homicides.