A woman or girl is murdered every ten minutes in the world by your partner or a family member. With that resounding figure he summarizes the UN the severity of the sexist violencein a report that recalls that the problem lies in inequality between women and men and warns that the rate of femicides.
Of the 85,000 women and girls victims of homicides intended in 2023, some 51,10060%, were murdered by their partners or family members. It’s 140 a day. Six every hour.
In contrast, only 12% of the men murdered that year they were at the hands of people in your home environment.
Home is the most dangerous place
For this reason, in the report on femicides in 2023, published on the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women, the UN insists that “the home is the most dangerous place for women.”
Not all of those 85,000 homicideswhich do not include women killed in wars and conflicts, are femicides, a concept that defines the murder of a woman for being a woman.
Yes, it is true that the vast majority of women murdered for this reason are at the hands of their partners and familiesexplains Angela Meone of those responsible for the report.
In any case, the UN points out that beyond the area in which women are murdered by men, the reasons are the same.
Social norms and inequality
“They have their origin in social norms and stereotypes that consider women subordinate to men, as well as discrimination against women and girls, inequality and unequal power relations between women and men in society”, diagnoses the UN.
The report updates the figures of a reality that has not changed compared to the analysis that the UN has been carrying out for years.
“Despite the efforts of many countries to prevent femicides, These crimes remain at alarmingly high levels“, denounces the report Femicides in 2023 prepared by UN Women and by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC).
The analysis provides data from three countries with different sociopolitical realities, France, Colombia and South Africato denounce that between the 22nd and 37% of women murdered by their partners they had denounced before they suffered physical or psychological violence.
Dismantle sexism
Thus, the UN points out that Many femicides could be prevented through timely interventionssuch as restraining orders against men who abuse their partners.
But, beyond police and judicial measures, the UN demands deeper changes in society. “We must confront and dismantle sexist prejudicespower imbalances and harmful norms that perpetuate violence against women,” claims Ghada Walyexecutive director of the UNODC.
The report regrets the huge decline in the number of countrieshalf now than in 2020, which offer data on sexist murders within the couple, something that makes it difficult to end this violence.
Angela tells me that the reasons are multiple. Some countries They delay the presentation of 2023 data and others, who in the past made efforts in this regard, They don’t have the ability to do it now. or they don’t consider it a priority.
Prostitution and trafficking
Beyond those committed by couples or family members, the UN indicates that there are other types of femicides, such as the murders of prostituted womenvictims of trafficking, as well as women murdered by people outside the family after suffering sexual violence or victims with a history of harassment. In France and South Africa, countries taken as reference, They account for 5 and 9% of the total number of femicides.
Angela reminds me that it is very difficult to measure the volume of femicides outside the closest area (couples and families) because very few countries separate these data.
Femicides around the world
Although men kill women in all regions of the world, the UN detects some differences.
While in Europe and America femicides in the domestic sphere They are mainly committed by intimate partners (64 and 58% respectively), in the rest of the world women and girls are more likely to be killed by family members.
Africa It was in 2023 the continent with the highest femicide rateswith 2.9 homicides per 100,000 women followed by America (1.6), Oceania (1.5), Asia (0.8) and Europe (0.6).
On the American continent 8,300 women were murdered last year by their partners or family. In Europe there were 2,300.
The lack of data also makes it difficult to establish a clear trend in the evolution of the feminicide rate, but The truth is that there are hardly any changes in the trend and, if they occur, they are very slow.
This, according to the UN, indicates that the risk factors and causes of sexist violence “are rooted in practices and norms that do not change quickly“.
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