The most dangerous place for women around the world may be at home. More than half of female murder victims last year were killed by their partners or family members, according to a new United Nations study.
Out of an estimated 87,000 women killed last year, some 50,000 – or 58% – were killed by partners or family members, according to the 2018 report on gender-related killing of women and girls by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC).
More than a third of the women intentionally killed in 2017 were killed by a current or former partner, and 137 women are killed by family members every day, it said.
The findings were released on Sunday to coincide with the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women. UN member states, NGOs and academic institutions also provided data on femicide, following a call for contributions issued by the Special Rapporteur on Violence against Women.
Yury Fedotov, the UNODC’s executive director, noted that although the majority of worldwide homicide victims are men – accounting for eight out of 10 homicides in 2017 – women bear the greatest burden in terms of violence perpetrated by intimate partners.
Women continue to pay the highest price as a result of gender inequality, discrimination and negative stereotypes,” Fedotov told Agence France-Presse. “The fact that women continue to be affected by this type of violence to a greater degree than men is indicative of an imbalance in power relations between women and men inside the domestic sphere.”
Gender-based violence, including new forms of gender-based violence and online violence against women, remain widely unpunished across the world. The UN is urging countries to comply with their international and regional obligations in terms of their due diligence to investigate, identify those responsible and hold them accountable.
