End Femicide Now: Helping Women Understand Their Risk In Situations Of Domestic Violence

The Global 16 Days Campaign unfolds in November and December each year to highlight violence against women — to raise awareness and make inroads into ending it. 

Ending femicide, the murder of women, is probably not an achievable goal. We can, however, help women understand their risk so they can take steps to get out in time.

What Is Femicide?

Femicide can be defined as the murder of girls or women as a direct result of the fact that they are female. Men overwhelmingly commit these murders, but women will on occasion take part in facilitating or perpetrating them. 

Girls and women across the world face unique vulnerabilities. Some of the most common pretexts under which women and girls are murdered include, according to the European Institute for Gender Equality:

• The murder of women in the context of intimate partner violence — in other words, when a male partner who was already committing domestic violence then murders his partner. 
• Torturing and killing women for purely misogynistic reasons.
• So-called honor killings.
• Specifically targeting women for rape and murder in the context of armed conflict and war.
• Murder that takes place over the course of human trafficking, which women disproportionately fall victim to, and which often takes place within the sex trade. 

How Common Is Femicide?

Nobody knows. Despite valiant efforts, data is sorely lacking. Not all governments accurately track data, and sharing that data is even harder. Some femicides may not be reported as such. 

However, the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine estimates that 35 percent of women who are murdered are killed by an intimate partner. The same holds true for only five percent of men who are murdered — and when that happens, research shows that the woman usually acts in self-defense after falling victim to domestic violence. 

Honor killings are another global problem that is particularly associated with patriarchal and religious cultures. In this crime, women are killed because they are suspected of having premarital sex or having affairs. 

Prostitutes are also often targeted, but in Latin American countries, the same can be said for any woman. 

Most femicides take place indoors, behind closed doors, so it is no coincidence that COVID-19 increased the rate of domestic violence.

In terms of statistics, we can say that:

• 2.3 in every 100,000 women is murdered globally. 
• Around 47,000 women were murdered by their male intimate partners in 2020. 
• A total of 58 percent of people who were murdered by partners or relatives are women. 
• Femicides were most common in Asia in 2020, where a total of 18,600 women were reported to have been killed. This is followed by Africa (18,100), the Americans (7,300), Europe (2,600), and Oceania (300).
• One girl or woman is murdered by someone within her own family every 11 minutes. 

Helping Women Understand Their Risk of Femicide: What Can Be Done?

Research shows that women who live in fear that their current or former husband or boyfriend will murder them make accurate assessments — that is, women who intuit that they are at risk indeed are, and often end up being murdered after telling someone about their fear. 

However, many who either don't think they are at serious risk of being murdered or have not shared this fear with anyone are living in great danger. 

Risk factors for femicide at the hands of a current or former intimate partner include:

• The woman intuitively feels that her husband, boyfriend, or ex will kill her.
• The man rushed the woman into the relationship, pushing her into serious commitments like marriage, children, or cohabitation before she was ready.
• The man's go-to way to deal with conflict is bullying, threats, and violence. He breaks things when he is angry.
• The man has a history of verbally abusing the woman.
• The man has a history of physically assaulting the woman. 
• The man has a history of physically assaulting previous partners.
• The man uses drugs or alcohol, which make him even more violent, and uses intoxication as an excuse for his behavior.
• The man has been in trouble with the police for violent offenses or stalking in the past.
• The man is financially controlling. 
• The man is jealous and seeks to isolate his partner. 
• The man is unable to recognize the extent of his own abuse. He refuses to change or try to change.
• The man sees himself as the patriarch, man of the house, or the central point of power in the household. He looks down on women and sees them as less. 
• The man has witnessed violence in childhood.

When these risk factors are present, it is time to get out — out of the relationship, out of the home, out of the orbit of the violent partner. We won't deal with how to achieve that in this article, because the time after leaving a violent and abusive partner is among the most dangerous periods in a woman's life. 

No quick checklist can help you in this situation — you need a team of people who can help you get out safely. Domestic violence shelters can be a good resource. So can privacy and security experts who can help you cover your tracks. 

If a woman in your life is in this situation, helping her is a moral imperative, but you cannot do so without also taking on some risk yourself. What she needs most is money and resources, as well as reliable support.