UN Press Conference: Femicide Report Highlights Alarming Trends in Violence Against Women

Global Femicide Statistics

• 🌍 The 2025 UN report reveals that 83,000 women and girls were killed intentionally worldwide in the past year.
• 💔 60% of these femicides (50,000) were committed by intimate partners or family members, meaning one woman or girl is killed by a partner or family member almost every 10 minutes.
• 📈 The global figure for femicides shows no sign of decline, indicating a persistent and critical issue.
• 📍 Africa has the highest rate of femicide by an intimate partner or family member at 3 per 100,000 women and girls.

The Continuum of Violence

• ⚠️ Femicides are the fatal culmination of a continuum of violence that often begins with controlling behavior, threats, and harassment, including online.
• 🏠 For women and girls, the home remains the most dangerous place in terms of homicide risk, with 60% of female homicides occurring within the domestic sphere.
• 💻 Digital violence is not separate from real violence; it is amplified and accelerated, with women facing online harassment, cyber stalking, and the live streaming of violence.

Data Gaps and Challenges

• 📊 Current data collection systems often fail to record gender-related killings outside the home or the intimate partner relationship, leading to an incomplete picture.
• 🌐 UN Women and UNODC are working to improve data collection through statistical frameworks to better identify, record, and classify gender-related killings.
• ⚖️ The lack of comprehensive data hinders accurate assessment, effective responses, and the pursuit of justice for victims.

Addressing Digital Violence and Femicide

• 🔒 Nearly two billion women and girls worldwide lack legal protection from online harassment and cyber stalking.
• 🚀 Artificial intelligence is accelerating harm through deep fakes and targeted harassment, outpacing current regulatory systems.
• 💡 Strong, autonomous, and well-funded women's movements are identified as the most critical factor in ending violence against women.
• 🏛️ Strengthening legislation, increasing budgets, ensuring political will for enforcement, and addressing impunity are crucial steps to combat femicide and digital violence.

Path Forward and Solutions

• 🤝 Collaboration between governments, the private sector, tech companies, and women's rights organizations is essential for a comprehensive approach.
• 💻 The UN is developing guidance to measure technology-facilitated violence and its link to femicide, complementing existing statistical frameworks.
• 🌐 The UN Convention against Cybercrime offers a legal framework to address offenses like the non-consensual dissemination of intimate images.
• ✨ The ultimate goal is to build systems where women's safety is non-negotiable and gender equality is the foundation for justice and peace.