By Millie Collins
In 2023, every 10 minutes, a woman or girl was intentionally killed by a partner or family member. A report recently released from the UN showed that gender-related killings, or femicide as it is now commonly known, is on the rise around the world. While there has been some public outcry, this is certainly not enough.
Femicide is defined as an intentional killing with a gender-related motivation. It is different from homicide, where the motivation may not be gender related. It is driven by discrimination against women and girls, gender stereotypes or harmful moral or religious norms of what is ‘natural’ or ‘unnatural’, long fostered by class society,
Femicide is the most extreme and prevalent manifestation of violence against women and girls, claiming just under 85,000 victims in 2023. More often than not these murders are not isolated incidents, but the continuation of the multiple forms of violence that women and girls daily experience at home, in workplaces, schools or public spaces. One in three women will experience physical or sexual violence from a partner or person known to them in their lifetime.
Even though the numbers presented in the report are alarmingly high, the true figure is likely to be much higher. An estimated four in ten intentional murders of women and girls go uncategorised as femicide as there isn’t enough information to identify them as such due to the variation in the way each country reports and investigates these crimes.
As a result, the two categories of crimes included in the report, and in general when reporting on these crimes, are murders committed by partners and/or family members. Although the data on many femicides is underreported and uncategorised, femicides committed by family members or partners is still the most prevalent form of gender related killings of women and girls.
Gender related killings of women and girls represent a global crisis that affects every country. It is particularly prevalent in Africa, where an average of 56 women and girls lose their lives every day. Africa has recorded the largest number of killings with an estimated 21,700 victims in 2023.
There have been several particularly gruesome murders in Nairobi, Kenya’s capital, where one victim was found dismembered in a park. These murders sparked outrage across the city with several demonstrations taking place last year, notably one in December 2024, where police resorted to using tear gas to disperse ‘violent and aggressive’ crowds made up of mostly women and children.
These murders are also connected to the increase of economic and social crisis and the dislocation caused by war, where mass rapes and femicides are used by military forces and militias, as is currently happening on a mass scale in Sudan and Congo.
There have also been demonstrations against femicide in France, Mexico, Colombia and Ireland in recent months, with thousands taking to the streets. However, the attempts at resistance have been fragmented and nationally focused. Many have even been spontaneous, with no organised leadership, and have lacked international solidarity and coordination.
To solve an issue of this magnitude will require a coordinated international movement of the working class to struggle not only against these crimes but against the patriarchal culture inseparable from capitalism and for women’s liberation and socialism.
