Last year there were 137 femicides per day
Around 50,000 women or girls were killed by their partners or other family members in 2024 – one every 10 minutes of the year across the world -, according to a United Nations report released this Tuesday.
Data collected by the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) indicate that there were 137 femicides per day, that is, maintaining the constant pace already seen in previous years, without there having been any positive developments.
Of the total of 83 thousand murders of women or girls last year, 60% were carried out by their partners or members of their families, while only 11% of the murders of men were carried out by their partners or family members.
“The home itself continues to be a dangerous and, at times, lethal place for too many women and girls across the world. The 2025 femicide report provides a wake-up call to the need for better prevention strategies and criminal justice responses to femicide, which take into account the conditions in which this form of extreme violence spreads,” said UNODC Acting Executive Director John Brandolino.
For the director of the Planning and Action Division of the United Nations for Women, Sarah Hendriks, “femicides do not happen as isolated acts”.
“Often, they are part of a spectrum of violence that can begin with controlling behavior, threats and harassment, including online. This year’s ’16 Days of the United Nations’ campaign highlights that digital violence is often not restricted to the online environment,” he said.
According to this official, “any woman or girl has the right to be safe in all aspects of their life and this requires prevention systems”.
“To stop these murders, we need laws aimed at violence against the lives of women or girls, both online and offline, holding perpetrators accountable long before the situation becomes fatal,” he concluded.
The UN report estimates that the highest rate of femicide by intimate partner/family member occurred in Africa (three in every 100,000 women), followed by the Americas (1.5), Oceania (1.4), Asia (0.7) and Europe (0.5).
