The research brief this year marks a pivotal anniversary — 25 years since the adoption of United Nations General Assembly Resolution 54/134, which established 25 November as the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women. This day commemorates the brutal assassination of the Mirabal sisters in the Dominican Republic on 25 November 1960, whose activism and sacrifice galvanized global attention towards efforts to end violence inflicted upon women and girls due to their gender.

More than two decades later, and despite the efforts of women’s rights movements to demand justice and accountability, as well as some notable progress in preventing and responding to violence against women and girls, significant challenges persist in fully addressing the issue. We are alarmed that the number of killings by family members and intimate partners – the most common manifestation of femicide – remains at staggering levels globally. Some 51,100 women and girls were killed at home by people closely related to them in 2023, accounting for 60 per cent of all female homicides. In too many cases, victims of femicide had previously reported violence and their killings could have been prevented.

This research brief also reveals a highly worrying trend indicating that attention to the problem of femicide may have waned in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. Since 2020, the number of countries reporting or publishing data on the killing of women by intimate partners or other family members has decreased by 50 per cent. Yet, more and better data are needed for a deeper understanding of the issue and its magnitude, and in order to develop and implement more effective prevention and response strategies. The UNODC-UN Women Statistical framework for measuring gender-related killings provides detailed guidance for producing comprehensive data on femicide.