In 2024, 50,000 women and girls were killed by intimate partners or family members – one every 10 minutes – according to data released today by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) and UN Women.
Last year, 83,000 women and girls were killed intentionally. Of them, 60 per cent – 50,000 women and girls – were killed at the hands of intimate partners or family members. This means one woman or girl is killed by a partner or family member almost every 10 minutes – an average of 137 every day. In contrast, just 11 per cent of male homicides were perpetrated by intimate partners or family members.
“Femicides don’t happen in isolation. They often sit on a continuum of violence that can start with controlling behavior, threats, and harassment – including online,” said Sarah Hendriks, Director of UN Women’s Policy Division. “The United Nation’s 16 Days campaign this year underscores that digital violence often doesn’t stay online. It can escalate offline and, in the worst cases, contribute to lethal harm, including femicide. Every woman and girl has the right to be safe in every part of her life, and that requires systems that intervene early. To prevent these killings, we need the implementation of laws that recognize how violence manifests across the lives of women and girls, both online and offline, and hold perpetrators to account well before it turns deadly.”
“The home remains a dangerous and sometimes lethal place for too many women and girls around the world. The 2025 femicide brief provides a stark reminder of the need for better prevention strategies and criminal justice responses to femicide, ones that account for the conditions that propagate this extreme form of violence,” said John Brandolino, acting Executive Director of UNODC.
Women and girls are subjected to this extreme form of violence in every region in the world, notes the 2025 femicide report. It is estimated that the highest rate of femicide by an intimate partner/family member was in Africa (3 per 100,000 women and girls), followed by the Americas (1.5), Oceania (1.4), Asia (0.7) and Europe (0.5).
Though femicides are also committed outside of the home, the amount of data remains limited. To help close these gaps, UN Women and UNODC are working closely with countries on the implementation of the 2022 statistical framework to enhance the identification, recording, and classification of gender-related killings of women and girls. Improving data availability will be vital to accurately assess the magnitude and consequences of these femicides, to support effective responses, and seek justice.
Note to editors
Though the nearly 50,000 women and girls killed by intimate partners or family members in 2024 is lower than the 2023 estimate of 51,100 victims, this change is not indicative of an actual decrease but largely due to differences in data availability at the country level.
Journalists are invited to join the UN noon briefing at 12:45 pm EST on Tuesday, 25 November, where UNODC and UN Women spokespeople will present the findings and answer questions.
For further information, please contact the UN Women media team at [ Click to reveal ]
About the 16 Days of Activism against Gender-Based Violence campaign
The 16 Days of Activism against Gender-Based Violence is a global campaign led by UN Women under the UNiTE to End Violence against Women initiative. It runs each year from 25 November to 10 December, connecting the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women and Human Rights Day.
In 2025, the campaign focuses on ending digital violence against all women and girls – one of the fastest-evolving forms of abuse worldwide. Digital violence includes online harassment, stalking, gendered disinformation, deepfakes, and non-consensual sharing of intimate images, all of which are rising sharply as technology advances.
The 2025 UNiTE campaign calls on governments, technology companies, and communities to act now – to strengthen laws, end impunity, and hold platforms accountable. It urges sustained investment in prevention, digital literacy, and survivor-centred services. It also calls for long-term support to women’s rights organizations that are leading efforts to make digital spaces safe and inclusive for all.