The statistics are as harrowing as they are persistent: every ten minutes, a woman or girl is killed by someone in her own inner circle. According to the latest global estimates, 83,000 women and girls were intentionally killed last year. While homicide is often framed as a crime of the streets or the result of external conflict, the reality for women is far more intimate and localized. Of those 83,000 victims, a staggering 60 per cent—approximately 50,000 individuals—lost their lives at the hands of an intimate partner or a family member. This equates to an average of 137 lives extinguished every single day by the very people who are traditionally expected to provide love, support, and security.
This pattern of violence stands in sharp contrast to the lived experiences of men. While men make up the majority of homicide victims globally, only 11 per cent of male homicides are perpetrated by intimate partners or family members. For women, the threat is not a stranger in the shadows; it is a partner in the living room or a relative in the home. This disparity highlights a profound gender-based crisis that transcends borders, cultures, and socioeconomic status, revealing that for women, the domestic sphere remains a site of significant, and often lethal, risk.
Expert analysis suggests that these killings are rarely isolated incidents of spontaneous rage. Instead, they are the devastating conclusion of a long-standing "continuum of violence." Sarah Hendriks, the Director of UN Women’s Policy Division, emphasizes that femicide is often the final stage of a trajectory that begins long before a weapon is drawn. This cycle frequently starts with coercive control, psychological manipulation, threats, and harassment. In the modern era, this continuum has expanded into the digital realm, where online abuse acts as a catalyst for physical harm.
“Femicides don’t happen in isolation,” Hendriks noted, pointing to the evolving nature of gender-based abuse. “They often sit on a continuum of violence that can start with controlling behavior, threats, and harassment—including online.” This year’s United Nations 16 Days of Activism campaign is specifically highlighting the dangerous bridge between digital and physical violence. The data suggests that digital abuse—ranging from stalking and gendered disinformation to the non-consensual sharing of intimate images—is not a separate category of harm but a precursor to offline escalation. In the most severe cases, this digital toxicity contributes directly to lethal outcomes, reinforcing the need for systems that can identify and intervene in these patterns early.
John Brandolino, the acting Executive Director of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), echoed these concerns, describing the home as a "lethal place" for far too many. He stressed that the 2025 femicide brief serves as a "stark reminder" for the global community. According to Brandolino, current prevention strategies and criminal justice responses are often insufficient because they fail to account for the specific social and systemic conditions that allow femicide to flourish. Without a radical shift in how the justice system recognizes and responds to the early warning signs of domestic abuse, the cycle of violence is likely to continue unabated.
The 2025 report provides a sobering breakdown of how this violence manifests across different regions. No corner of the globe is immune, though the rates of femicide vary significantly. Africa recorded the highest rate of femicide committed by intimate partners or family members, with an estimated 3 victims per 100,000 women and girls. The Americas followed with a rate of 1.5, while Oceania sat at 1.4. Asia and Europe reported lower but still significant rates of 0.7 and 0.5 per 100,000, respectively. These figures, however, only tell part of the story.
One of the greatest obstacles to ending femicide is the lack of comprehensive data. While the numbers for domestic killings are high, many femicides occurring outside the home—such as those linked to organized crime, human trafficking, or targeted attacks on female human rights defenders—remain underreported or misclassified. To address this "data gap," UN Women and UNODC are collaborating with nations to implement a 2022 statistical framework designed to standardize the identification and recording of gender-related killings. By improving how these crimes are tracked, advocates hope to provide a more accurate assessment of the problem, which is essential for crafting effective legal responses and ensuring justice for victims.
The urgency of this work is underscored by a technical note in the latest report. While the estimate of 50,000 women killed by partners or family members in 2024 is technically lower than the 51,100 estimated in 2023, experts warn against interpreting this as a sign of progress. The change is largely attributed to fluctuations in data availability and reporting methods at the country level, rather than a genuine decrease in violence. In many parts of the world, the reporting infrastructure is so fragile that thousands of deaths likely go uncounted or are classified as generic homicides without acknowledging the gendered motivation behind them.
In response to these findings, the 16 Days of Activism against Gender-Based Violence campaign—a global initiative running from November 25 to December 10—is focusing its 2025 efforts on the "digital frontier" of abuse. This period, which bridges the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women and Human Rights Day, serves as a rallying cry for governments, tech giants, and civil society. The focus on digital violence is a response to the rapid evolution of technology-facilitated abuse. Deepfakes, AI-generated harassment, and sophisticated stalking apps have given perpetrators new tools to exert control and inflict trauma.
The campaign argues that digital spaces must be treated with the same level of legal and social scrutiny as physical spaces. It calls for tech companies to be held accountable for the safety of their platforms and for governments to update laws to reflect the realities of 21st-century abuse. This includes strengthening digital literacy, investing in survivor-centered services, and providing long-term financial support to women’s rights organizations that are on the front lines of this battle. These organizations are often the first to recognize new trends in violence and the first to offer a lifeline to those in danger.
Ending femicide requires more than just reactive measures; it demands a total systemic overhaul. Sarah Hendriks insists that safety for women and girls is a fundamental right that must be protected in every facet of life, whether in the privacy of the home or the public sphere of the internet. "To prevent these killings, we need the implementation of laws that recognize how violence manifests across the lives of women and girls, both online and offline," she said. The goal is to hold perpetrators accountable "well before" the violence turns deadly. This means that law enforcement and social services must take "minor" incidents of harassment and controlling behavior seriously, recognizing them as potential precursors to homicide.
The mission of UN Women remains centered on this transformative change. As the lead UN entity for gender equality, the organization works to shift the very foundations of society—laws, institutions, and social behaviors—to close the gender gap. The overarching message of the 2025 report is that gender equality is not a secondary issue or a "women’s interest" topic; it is a life-or-death necessity. Until the home is no longer a place of peril and the digital world is no longer a tool for terror, the global community must remain vigilant. The statistics may be daunting, but they serve as a necessary catalyst for action, reminding us that every ten minutes, a life is waiting to be saved.
