Approximately 51,100 women and girls worldwide lost their lives at the hands of an intimate partner or other family member in 2023, a United Nations (UN) report found.

This is higher than the 2022 estimate of 48,800 victims.

"The 2023 figure means that 60 percent of the almost 85,000 women and girls killed intentionally during the year were murdered by their intimate partners or other family members," the report stated.

"In other words, an average of 140 women and girls worldwide lost their lives every day at the hands of their partner or a close relative," it added.

The report also revealed that "women and girls in all regions are affected by gender-related killings," with Africa recording the largest absolute number of killings at 21,700 and the highest level of violence relative to the size of its female population.

Asia followed with 18,500 victims of femicide, 8,300 in Americas, 2,300 in Europe, and 300 in Oceania.

Globally, 55 percent of femicides were committed by other family members, and 45 percent by intimate partners.

Motives of femicides

The UN report noted that femicide "represents the most extreme manifestation of gender-based violence against women and girls."

The killings, it furthered, are not isolated incidents but rather "the culmination of pre-existing forms of gender-based violence that affect all regions and countries worldwide."

The motives for gender-related violence and killings are often rooted in societal norms and stereotypes that consider women to be subordinate to men, as well as in discrimination towards women and girls, and inequality and unequal power relations between women and men in society, according to the report.

"The vast majority of intentional killings of women and girls worldwide are perpetrated by intimate partners or other family members," the report highlighted.

This suggests that the home remains the most dangerous place for women and girls in terms of the risk of lethal victimization," it further read.

Femicide perpetrators

The UN report noted that 90 percent of perpetrators of femicide are men and 37 percent of women who were killed by their intimate partners have previously reported sexual, physical, or psychological violence by their partner.

"It is particularly important to monitor such situations as specific preventative measures can be taken by competent authorities," the UN stated.

In just seven percent of the femicide cases where the victim had been subject to previous forms of violence, the perpetrator had received a restraining order by the authorities, the UN report added.

"Such a small share may indicate that if appropriate measures had been used more widely, some femicides could have been prevented," it added.

Additionally, the age profiles of victims and perpetrators of intimate partner femicide indicate that the risk of falling victim to this type of killing is slightly higher for women in the age group 26 to 35 and for perpetrators aged 36 to 45, although, the UN report furthered, "women of all ages are at risk."

Ending gender-based violence

Several approaches to the prevention of gender-based violence (GBV) against women and girls, including femicide, have been used in recent decades, the UN stressed.

The agency recommended primary prevention addressed changing societal norms and attitudes in both women and men and girls and boys through educational curricula and courses; legal responses criminalizing femicide as a special offense in national criminal codes; strengthening of criminal justice responses to prosecute offenses related to GBVs; introduction of multi-agency approaches in the investigation and prosecution of domestic violence cases; public campaigns and advocacy efforts to condemn all acts of GBV; and establishment of efforts in the area of data collection on femicide to release analyzation on trends and patterns associated with the crime.