A woman was killed by someone close to her nearly every ten minutes last year, the United Nations warned, underscoring the world’s persistent failure to curb the deadly toll of femicide, according to Hurriyet Daily News.
In a report released to mark the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women, the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime and U.N. Women estimated that some 50,000 women and girls were murdered in 2024 by intimate partners or family members. The figure drawn from data across 117 countries, amounts to an average of 137 women a day. Sixty percent of all women killed globally last year died at the hands of people they knew best: husbands, partners, fathers, brothers, or other relatives. By contrast, just 11 percent of male homicide victims were killed by someone close to them.
Although the annual total is slightly lower than the previous year, the U.N. cautioned that this does not signal any true decline. Instead, the variation is largely due to uneven reporting across countries. The study stresses that there has been “no sign of improvement” in the global effort to prevent gender-related killings and that the home remains the “most dangerous place for women and girls.”
No region was spared. Africa recorded the highest number of femicides, with roughly 22,000 cases in 2024.
“Femicides don’t happen in isolation,” said Sarah Hendricks, Director of U.N. Women’s Policy Division. “They often sit on a continuum of violence that can begin with controlling behavior, threats, and harassment, including online.”
The report warns that technological advances have fueled new forms of abuse, citing the rise of non-consensual image sharing, doxxing, and deepfake videos that disproportionately target women and girls.
Despite years of advocacy, the U.N. said the pace of progress remains far too slow and the cost measured in lives continues to mount.
