The United Nations Women has revealed that a woman or girl was killed by an intimate partner or family member nearly every 10 minutes in 2024.
According to the latest femicide brief from UN Women and the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), 50,000 of the 83,000 women and girls intentionally killed last year were murdered by someone within their household, averaging 137 killings each day.
“A woman or girl was killed by an intimate partner or family member almost every 10 minutes last year,” the UN press release stated.
Sarah Hendriks, Director of UN Women’s Policy Division, stressed that femicides rarely occur in isolation, often escalating from controlling behaviour, threats, harassment, and digital abuse. “Every woman and girl has the right to be safe in every part of her life,” she said.
John Brandolino, Acting Executive Director of UNODC, warned that homes remain a dangerous place for too many women and girls worldwide, urging improved prevention strategies and criminal justice responses to femicide.
The report highlighted regional disparities, with Africa recording the highest rate of femicide by intimate partners or family members at 3 per 100,000 women, followed by the Americas, Oceania, Asia, and Europe.
UN Women and UNODC continue to work with governments to implement a statistical framework introduced in 2022 to better identify and record gender-related killings, ensuring effective policy responses and justice for victims.
Although the 50,000 figure for 2024 is slightly lower than the 51,100 recorded in 2023, officials cautioned that this reflects differences in data collection rather than a real decline in femicide.
This year’s findings coincide with the launch of the 2025 16 Days of Activism Against Gender-Based Violence campaign, focusing on combatting digital violence, including online harassment, stalking, deepfakes, and non-consensual sharing of intimate images.
The campaign calls on governments, tech companies, and communities to strengthen laws, enforce accountability, invest in prevention and survivor support, and back women’s rights organisations working to make digital spaces safer.
