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STORY: UN / VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN
TRT: 04:03
SOURCE: UNIFEED
RESTRICTIONS: NONE
LANGUAGES: ENGLISH / NATS
DATELINE: 25 NOVEMBER 2025, NEW YORK CITY / FILE
FILE - NEW YORK CITY
1. Wide shot, UN headquarters
25 NOVEMBER 2025, NEW YORK CITY
2. Wide shot, press briefing room
3. UPSOUND (English) Candice Welsch, Deputy Director of the Division for Operations of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC):
“In 2024, an estimated 50,000 women and girls were killed by intimate partners or other family members. This number is worldwide. This means that 137 women and girls lost their lives every single day, at the hand of someone in their own family and sadly, what we see is that this global figure shows no sign of decline.”
4. Wide shot, press briefing room
5. UPSOUND (English) Candice Welsch, Deputy Director of the Division for Operations of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC):
“We do know with recent estimates that approximately 90 per cent of intentional homicides are committed by men, and this information is, based on information we have directly from member states to UNODC that is complemented then as well by other information from governance sources and from NGOs.
6. Wide shot, press briefing room
7. UPSOUND (English) Candice Welsch, Deputy Director of the Division for Operations of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC):
“When we try to look at long term trends in femicide, so far, we can only really look at two regions in the Americas and in Europe where we have longer term detailed data, to be able to look at the changes over the last 14 years from 2010 to 2024. And in these regions, we can see a difference, in the Americas, despite some fluctuations up and down the region the rate in 2024 is not that much lower than what it was in 2010. In contrast, in Europe we do see a more market decline from 2010 into 2024.
8. UPSOUND (English) Candice Welsch, Deputy Director of the Division for Operations of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC):
“When we start to look at what violence happens in the home or by, you know, intimate partners, we see that almost 60 per cent of the women that are killed by intimate partners or other family members. Whereas when we look at that figure, for men, it's much, much smaller, and only eleven per cent of them are happening in the home. So, it's important to recognize this, that while the vast majority of male homicides occur outside his domestic sphere, unfortunately for women, the home continues to be the most dangerous place for them in terms of risk of homicide.”
9. SOUNDBITE (English) Sarah Hendriks, Director of Policy, Programme and Intergovernmental Division, UN Women:
“Our latest data estimates confront us with a very stark truth. And that is that for these two plus decades, the needle has actually barely moved. In fact, intimate partner violence has declined by just about 0.2 per cent on an annual basis.”
10. Wide shot, press briefing room
11. SOUNDBITE (English) Sarah Hendriks, Director of Policy, Programme and Intergovernmental Division, UN Women:
“One woman or girl is killed every ten minutes by an intimate partner or by her family member. A data point that actually catches in my throat. Even though we have seen this same refrain for many, many years now. Femicides do not emerge suddenly. They do not emerge out of the blue. They are actually the fatal final act in a continuum of violence, a continuum of violence that is visible, but that is often far too ignored, long before a woman is killed.”
12. Wide shot, press briefing room
13. SOUNDBITE (English) Kalliopi Mingeirou, Chief, Ending Violence against Women section, UN Women:
“Awareness raising and campaigns are not enough. Laws are not enough. What do we really need to have in place? It's, first of all, budget, adequate resources, political will to enforce the legislation, and also we need to address impunity. And that's why the role of the police, law enforcement officials, the justice sector is really central to have the right capacity and the right information and tools in order to make sure that these cases are getting to court and they're getting justice, to address impunity and to send a very clear message that violence against women is not tolerated.”
14. Wide shot, end of press briefing
“Unfortunately for women, the home continues to be the most dangerous place for them in terms of risk of homicide, “ marking the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women, the 2025 femicide report from the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) and UN Women confirms that femicide continues to take the lives of tens of thousands of women and girls worldwide, with no sign of real progress.
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.
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.
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