Of the 85,000 women killed by men in 2023, 60% died at the hands of a partner or family member, new UN figures show
An estimated 140 women and girls across the world die at the hands of their partner or family member every day, according to new global estimates on femicide by the UN.
The report by UN Women found 85,000 women and girls were killed intentionally by men in 2023, with 60% (51,100) of these deaths committed by someone close to the victim. The organisation said its figures showed that, globally, the most dangerous place for a woman to be was in her home, where the majority of women die at the hands of men.
Nyaradzayi Gumbonzvanda, UN Women’s deputy executive director, said: “What the data is telling us is that it is the private and domestic sphere’s of women’s lives, where they should be safest, that so many of them are being exposed to deadly violence.
It's a shame that this data is being presented this poorly, because this is a really important issue that deserves attention. None of the figures presented in the linked article have the proper context to understand them. Even the UN report itself does not present their findings well.
So, for instance, 140 women per day is of course more than the ideal number of zero, but there are billions of people on this planet. To actually quantify the gender imbalance of this number, we need to compare it to the number of men who are victims in the same way. From the report:
Globally, approximately 51,100 women and girls were killed by their intimate partners or other family members [...out of...] 85,000 women and girls killed intentionally during the year [...] In other words, an average of 140 women and girls worldwide lost their lives every day at the hands of their partner or a close relative.
The report does not offer corresponding numbers for male (or non-binary) victims. It does, however, say that 11.8% of male victims and 60.2% of female victims are killed by partners or other family members. It also acknowledges that 80% of all homicide victims are men and 20% women, which is beside the point as this is about domestic violence, but it will allow us to do some math to arrive at numbers to compare against.
85,000 * 80/20 = 340,000 men killed total
340,000 * 11.8% = 40,120 men killed by partners or family
so we are comparing 40,120 men with 51,100 women
women are 27.4% more likely than men to be killed by partners or family.
...which should have been the headline. 27% more is massive! Domestic violence is a huge issue, and women are more likely to suffer from it!
There is no need to obfuscate the numbers to be less honest. The honest numbers themselves are shocking enough, and scientifically literate readers won't dismiss your credibility along with your cause. I look forward to future UN reports communicating these horrifying statistics a bit more clearly.
Edit: Wtf is wrong with ya'll? This article is only about one kind of violence that women are more suseptible too. That's it. No one is trying to say men aren't getting hurt, or even that women being harmed is the #1 cause of women's death. Someone has a post like, "Well, women are more likely to slip, so that's more dangerous, so there!" Like, okay??? Men are usually the victims of violent crimes and homicides, but when they looked at home based partner abuse, women come out on top. Like, damn.
Here's some articles on men since apparently we can't have an article talking about something specific. I guess I should leave a comment on all of these saying "What about the girls!" :
To be fair to the Guardian, their headline is substantive, compared to the other article that just gave a number without context. The report does clearly support the assertion that on average home is the most dangerous place for women to be attacked.
I'm confused - how are the numbers they provided less honest? You came up with a different stat than what they're focusing on, but I don't see how that makes it more honest.
Well, the way they initially presented has people coming in saying "Well, men get hurt too" like they're trying to say they don't. The way this first explained the numbers is saying, "Hey, they're 27% more likely to be harmed." All the person did was turn the data into a percentage.
And men are usually the most common victim of violence …from other men. This is if you take in the gang violence and LBGTQ factor. This is not to say that men cannot die from women or women are on some sort of pedestal this is just to say men are more likely to be killed by another man than a woman in many circumstances.
Wtf is wrong with ya'll? This article is only about one kind of violence that women are more susceptible too. That's it. No one is trying to say men aren't getting hurt, or even that women being harmed is the #1 cause of women's death.
Maybe we're just exhausted of being preached to about how hard life always is for women while at the same time being told life is never hard enough for men and boys to matter, and if it is, it's their own fault? Or about how men are shit stains who are all at fault for everything each man has ever done and maybe should just all die? When the overall discourse is 99% about women and girls, each individual article becomes inseparable from the overall cultural norm that none of men's suffering matters but all of women's suffering does, no matter what it is.
Literally in this thread
Would the world be better if we limited the amount of men allowed in the world? It's like every waking moment is a remind of how terrible we are.
I guess I'll have to tell my fiance that being home is dangerous. So I'll have to kick her out. Good news: more time for dnd! /s
Stupid jokes aside this isn't surprising, most murders in general are done by someone close. I'd like to know the statistics on why they were killed, how many where crimes of passion? Jealousy? Misogyny?
I think we need to know more in order to combat these types of violent mentalities.
And thats ignoring, of course, all the actual leading causes of death which are various diseases, primarily heart diseases of course, and COVID.
Mind you that still does indicate that home is where most people die, but it's not homicide you should be worried about.
It's your stairs and... garden, I guess? I have no idea why unintentional poisoning is so high, does food poisoning count? It must. (Edit: drug overdoses, whoops)
So I guess what ladies should really be wary of is their stairs, ladders, and those leftovers that you're not sure about from the weekend.
Just as an example, for every 1 homicide victims in women aged 20-39, there were (in the same group):
And among women aged 70+ years, there were no homicides in the data, but over 60% of injury related deaths were caused by falling. Just... Falling. Not homicide, just "mum had a fall yesterday and had to see the doctor"
I suppose that really drives home how important building codes are and stuff like life alert, for old folks...
If you account for the actual leading causes of death though, where you really outta be wary of are fast food chains, public transit, and low ventilation workspaces with sneezy coworkers. That's what'll actually be most likely to kill you...
I guess with skip the dishes being a thing though, that's still home being the most "dangerous" place anyways, /shrug
This is ignoring the fact that not every women who is a victim of intimate partners violence is murdered by that intimate partner. Those who die are a very small minority of those who suffer. Women absolutely have to be concerned about being physically or sexually harmed by intimate partners. It is so common that we have to for our own survival.
But the article is trying to frame homicide at home as the leading danger to women. It's pretty demonstratebly not, it's a small minority of causes for injury and death amongst women.
Accidents are substantially more common as a source of danger for women, by an enormous margin, both in lethal and non lethal cases.
Literally anyone who has ever worked in an ER can attest to the fact that the vast vast majority of injuries are accident related.
Women should be a fuck tonne more concerned about the shitty products ordered from China that can genuinely kill them (lithium batteries, tools, healthy and beauty products, electronics, etc), as well as practicing proper safety precautions when doing tasks (PPE, having a spotter, avoiding lifting too much weight, etc).
That shit is enormously more dangerous than domestic violence, in terms of pure statistics, by an enormous margin.
I think the point of studies like this is to show that violence against women is overwhelmingly perpetrated by people they know. People love to characterize the epidemic of physical and sexual violence against women as though it's because of random horrible men targeting women in dark alleys. This directly shows that this is not the case. It's overwhelmingly men that women know directly. The vast majority is committed by intimate partners and close male family members in women's homes.
Women who speak out against this violence are very frequently met with shame and further violence. Even in cases where the man is obviously in the wrong. I would know as I and several of my friends have had this experience ourselves. Society is only sympathic to women who have experienced violence in mass media. When it comes to women in their hometowns, in their local communities, they often face outright hostility. The problem of misogyny is far more widespread than people are willing to acknowledge.
I think the point of studies like this is to show that violence against women is overwhelmingly perpetrated by people they know.
The thing is: Interpersonal violence in general is mostly perpetrated by someone the victim knows, so we have no idea how strong the "women" part of the equation is. This study only says women are more likely to be killed by intimate partners or family members, which isn't saying much because outside of active warzones or other places of rampant violence everyone is more likely to be killed by intimate partners or family members.
Edit: See 2ugly2live's comment in this thread for what I mean. Now that's useful data.
This is specifically about intimate partner violence, not a study of every cause of death. They're focusing on women because the numbers are not higher for men. If they were the same, there would be little need to distinguish the two, but they noticed a tend. That's the whole point of this is to highlight that women face a higher risk of harm at home, at the hands of someone they know, than men. That's it. They're not saying men don't also get abused and murdered, nor is it saying the other ways men die aren't valid.
A United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime report estimated that globally, while 81% of all homicide victims are males, 82% of intimate partner homicide victims are female and 64% of intimate partner/family-related homicide victims are female (UNODC 2019).
It was also estimated that around 1 in 3 (34%) women intentionally killed worldwide are killed by an intimate partner, however, there are large differences across regions. Oceania (which includes Australia) had the highest estimated proportion of women killed exclusively by intimate partners (42%) and Europe had the lowest (29%) (UNODC 2019).
Not trying to downplay the problem of domestic violence, but the title seems misleading. Most people spend considerably more time at home, of course more women die that way. It's not like they're going into dark alleys for hours at a time, in which case I would expect the other statistics to go up.