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Aug 6, 20203 min read

What is Femicide?

By: Kelly Hu


What is the definition of femicide?

Femicide is the term referring to the killing of women and girls simply because they are female. The wide range of killings that femicide includes can be perpetrated directly or indirectly.

  • Direct femicides include killings as a result of intimate partner violence, dowry-related killings, and gender identity- and sexual orientation-related killings.

  • Indirect femicides include poorly conducted abortions, maternal mortality rates, death from neglect, and ill-treatment.

Unfortunately, this list is extremely condensed and only growing. New forms of femicide include violent extremism, or the justification of violence to achieve extreme political or religious views.


In political situations, femicide is known as feminicide. The term feminicide refers to more than the killings labeled as femicide; it holds responsible male perpetrators and the state and judicial structures that normalize misogyny.


What causes femicide?

Femicide is rooted in long-term historical issues of gender inequality, misogyny, and power imbalances. Normalized institutional gender-based discrimination has inevitably led to rising rates of violence against women in many forms. In the Middle East and South Asia, dowry femicide - the murder of a woman due to conflicts over dowry (money or property bought by the bride to her husband on their marriage) - can be considered “tradition”. In Latin America, intimate partner femicide is often referred to as a “crime of passion”. In countries like China and India, female infanticide is justified by the belief that male children possess dominant advantages over female children.


Where is femicide prevalent?

Femicide is prevalent in every corner of the globe; every day in 2017, 137 women and girls died due to femicide somewhere in the world, adding up to 87,000 women and girls murdered worldwide that year.

  • Europe: In Romania and Northern Ireland, there are 4.3 deaths of women due to femicide per million inhabitants. In Turkey, almost 500 women were murdered in the year 2019 alone. Countries such as France and Spain experience extremely high femicide rates as well.

  • Asia: In India, over 7,000 cases of dowry femicide were reported in 2016. In China, female children are twice as likely to die in their first year of life than male children.

  • Latin America: In Mexico, approximately 10 women are killed every single day, and the rate of femicide has doubled in the last 5 years. In the first three months of 2020 alone, almost 50 women and girls have been murdered in Colombia. In the first half of 2018, almost 300 femicides occurred.

  • Africa: In the Central African Republic, 10.4 out of 100,000 women died due to femicide in 2016. The rate of femicide in South Africa for 2015 was 9.6 per 100,000 women, 4 times more than the global average.


How should the international community address femicide?

Like all issues, femicide is extremely difficult to tackle. Statistics are often underreported and ignored. However, there are numerous steps countries and communities around the world can take to address this horrific issue.

  • Female representation in government: As of February 2019, under 25% of all national parliamentarians were women. Throughout history, women’s leadership and inclusion in government has promoted female empowerment and created room for the discussion of numerous issues related to gender equality.

  • Increasing access to education: Increasing education for women increases their opportunities for economic independence, while increasing education for men on women’s rights denormalizes violence against women.

  • Strengthen collection and analysis of mortality data: More data about femicide and intimate partner violence, such as the documentation of the relationship between the victim and perpetrator, should be collected. This data can be distributed to more sources like the police, courts, and medical examiners to more accurately work to prevent it in the future.

  • Train and sensitize health staff and police: The training and sensitization of hospital workers, health workers and medical examiners could help better the documentation, research, and prevention of femicide. Similar to the training and sensitization of health staff, police would be better equipped to identify cases of femicide, enforce related laws, and support children affected by femicide.


Femicide has gone unnoticed by the general public for far too long. Time and time again, the international community has failed to properly address the issue, making it clear that the time to educate, analyze, and act is now.


Discussion Questions:

  • What are some specific situations that increase the risk of femicide?

  • How can the international communities best aid developing countries to combat femicide?

  • How can countries best combat gender inequality within domestic institutions?

  • What are some other steps the international community can take to reduce femicide rates?


Sources Used/Further Reading:


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