There is perhaps no more brutal reminder of the world’s failure to protect women than femicide, the intentional killing of a woman because she is a woman. According to UN Women, 51,100 women and girls were killed by an intimate partner or a family member in 2023. The data shows that 140 women and girls die every day at the hands of their partner or a close relative, which means one woman or girl is killed every 10 minutes by someone who should have cared for her. These are not isolated incidents or crimes of passion. These are acts of gender-based violence steeped in deep-rooted misogynistic extremism, reinforced by systems that either look the other way or respond far too late.
If we are to truly address violence against women in all its forms, then we must confront femicide head-on. We must call it what it is. We must name the issue and place it squarely in the realm of preventable acts of violence, not unfortunate tragedies, not individual misfortunes. Femicides are predictable. It follows patterns. And therefore, it is preventable.
The term femicide
The term “femicide” was popularised by sociologist Diana Russell in the 1970s, deliberately coined to draw attention to the unique nature of violence against women. Unlike the more gender-neutral term “homicide,” femicide highlights the very specific motivations behind these crimes. It differentiates between a woman being killed during a robbery and a woman being executed by her partner because she wanted to leave.
What makes femicide especially chilling is that it often represents the final, fatal act in a long continuum of abuse. The signs are frequently there, coercive control, previous physical assaults, stalking, isolation, but they are too often minimised or ignored by those in a position to intervene. In many cases, women have reached out for help, reported threats, or taken steps to escape. Yet they are still murdered. This tells us something devastating about the systems designed to protect them.
Recognising key risk factors and red flags
To effectively tackle femicides, we must get better at recognising the warning signs. The 2021 NCBI study outlines key risk factors, many of which are painfully familiar. These include a history of domestic violence, forced sex, previous threats to kill, access to firearms, and obsessive jealousy.
The challenge is that data collection on femicide is woefully inadequate in many countries. If we don’t have the numbers, we cannot understand the scale of the problem. And if we don’t understand the scale, we cannot generate the political will to act.
We must demand the systematic collection of data that accurately reflects the reality of femicide, who is being killed, by whom, where, and under what circumstances. We must train those responsible for recording deaths such as police, coroners, and medical professionals, to properly identify and document cases of femicide. Only with a clear evidence base can we begin to define realistic and effective prevention strategies.
As UN Special Reporter on Violence Against Women, Reem Alsalem stated in 2022: “Femicide is the most brutal manifestation of a continuum of violence against women. Yet it is also the most visible and the most preventable.”
The prevention of this ultimate act of violence against women must be a priority
Femicide does not occur out of nowhere. It is rarely spontaneous. It is most often the end result of a pattern of coercive control, intimidation, and escalating violence. Preventing femicide means intervening earlier in that pattern, when a woman reports being followed, when her partner threatens suicide if she leaves, when her social media activities are being monitored and controlled, when the locks on her door have mysteriously been changed without her consent.
Early detection must be taken seriously. Risk assessment tools need to be made widely available and used rigorously by police, healthcare professionals, and support services. Safety planning should not be a tick-box exercise. It should be trauma-informed, survivor-led, and culturally competent. We need frontline professionals who are trained not just in how to ask the right questions, but how to listen to the answers with empathy and belief.
Moreover, preventing femicide means challenging the very roots of violence against women. It means dismantling the harmful norms that normalise male entitlement, glorify dominance and toxic masculinity, and trivialise abuse. Boys must be taught that love does not equal control. That jealousy is not passion. That no one has the right to own another human being.
It also means addressing economic dependence, which traps many women in dangerous relationships. When a woman is unable to leave because she cannot afford rent, childcare, or food, the risk to her life grows exponentially. Improving access to housing, employment opportunities, and financial support is not simply an economic issue, it is a matter of life and death.
Awareness and accountability
There is a dire need to raise public awareness about the motivations and attitudes underpinning femicide. The media plays a pivotal role here. Too often, headlines sanitise or even romanticise these killings, referring to them as “tragic love stories,” “domestic disputes,” or “jealous rages.” These narratives obscure the truth. A man murdering his wife because she dared to leave him is not a romantic tragedy, it is a horrific crime rooted in control and a societal failure to intervene.
We need education campaigns that expose these truths. Campaigns that engage both women and men, that empower bystanders to act, and that help communities spot danger signs. And when a woman or girl is murdered, we must respond loudly, not with resignation, but with righteous anger. Vigils are important, but they must be matched by a demand for systemic change.
Crucially, we must also increase awareness of the risk factors for both victimisation and perpetration. It is no good asking why a woman stayed with a violent man if we never ask why he felt entitled to hurt her in the first place, or why society allowed him to do so with impunity.
Dr. Jacquelyn Campbell, a renowned researcher in the field of intimate partner violence, emphasises the importance of recognising and acting upon known risk factors to prevent femicide. In her study titled “Risk Factors for Femicide in Abusive Relationships: Results From a Multisite Case Control Study,” she and her colleagues identify specific risk factors associated with intimate partner femicide, such as the perpetrator’s access to firearms and previous threats with a weapon. The study underscores the necessity of addressing these risk factors promptly to prevent lethal outcomes.
In a tragic case from Australia, Ariel Bombara recounted how she and her mother reported her father’s threatening behaviour and possession of firearms to the police on multiple occasions. Despite clear indicators of escalating risk, their warnings were ignored, leading to a double murder-suicide. Bombara stated:”My mother and I made clear that lives were at risk, and we were repeatedly ignored. Repeatedly failed. Those failures have cost the lives of two incredible women.”
This is just one case which underscores the critical need for authorities to act upon clear warnings and risk assessments to prevent such tragedies.
Legislative and policy reform
Laws alone will not end femicide. But without strong, well-enforced laws, change is impossible. We must push for legislative frameworks that explicitly name and criminalise femicide. In countries where femicide is not recognised in law, it often falls through the cracks, treated as an unfortunate byproduct of domestic violence, rather than as a distinct and intentional act of gender-based murder.
Investigations into femicide must be robust. They must be trauma-informed, survivor- and family-centred, and free from the biases that so often infect criminal justice systems. We need trained prosecutors who understand the dynamics of intimate partner violence, and judges who are not swayed by myths about ‘provocation’ or ‘mutual abuse’.
Ending femicide is not a pipe dream. It is a moral imperative. It will require sustained effort, political courage, and societal introspection. It will require men to hold other men accountable. It will require governments to prioritise women’s lives over public relations. And it will require each of us to reject silence in the face of violence.
We owe it to every woman who has been murdered simply for existing. We owe it to their families. And most of all, we owe it to the countless of women and girls still alive today, hoping someone will act before it’s too late.
However, please note thatin early 2025, more women in the UK died by suicide after experiencing domestic abuse than were murdered by a partner, an unthinkable but real shift that demands urgent attention. These deaths are not isolated mental health crises; they are often the final consequence of prolonged coercive control and emotional torment. In a recent article “When Silence Becomes Final: Recognising Suicide as the Deadliest Act of Domestic Abuse,” I explore what this means for how we define and respond to domestic abuse.
About the Author
Now recognised as a Gender-Based Violence Expert, Robert Kaiser specialises in criminology-informed strategies to prevent violence against women, integrating insights from sociology and behavioural psychology. He is currently pursuing a PhD in Criminology, focusing on Synthesising Escalation Pattern Analysis Across the Dynamics of Intimate Partner Violence to Improve Lethality Assessments. If you would like to follow his academic journey and access his publications, please visit his ResearchGate profile.
Robert has worked closely with hundreds of female survivors of physical and sexual crimes and is the author of NEVER A VICTIM, a 530-page survivor-led, trauma-informed guide to women’s safety.