Victim of Feminicide

Femicide or feminicide is a hate crime which is broadly defined as "the intentional killing of women or girls because they are female", with definitions varying based on cultural context.

• In 1976, the feminist author Diana E. H. Russell first defined the term as "the killing of females by males because they are female."
• A spouse or partner is responsible in almost 40% of homicides involving a female victim. Additionally, femicide may be under reported. Femicide often includes domestic violence and forced or sex-selective abortions.

In some Latin American countries the term femicide is used in reference to the violent killings of women and girls which are frequently perpetrated by gang members in order to stoke fear and compliance among civilians.

History

The term femicide was first used in England in 1801 to signify "the killing of a woman". In 1848, the term was published in Wharton's Law Lexicon. The term stems from the Latin femina, meaning "female" and -cide from the Latin "caedere" meaning "to kill".

The current usage emerged with the 1970s feminist movements, which aimed to raise female class consciousness and resistance against gender oppression. The term has been used to call attention to violence against women. American author Carol Orlock is widely credited with initiating this usage of the term in her unpublished anthology on femicide.

Diana Russell publicized the term at the Crimes Against Women Tribunal in 1976 at the first International Tribunal on Crimes against Women in Belgium. She wrote: "We must realize that a lot of homicide is femicide. We must recognize the sexual politics of murder. From the burning of witches in the past, to the more recent widespread custom of female infanticide in many societies, to the killing of women for 'honor,' we realize that femicide has been going on a long time. But since it involves mere females, there was no name for it until Carol Orlock invented the word 'femicide.'" Femicide remains understudied in scientific literature.

Femicide may also be 'intimate.' Intimate femicide can be identified as such by using "severity of violence, such as access to and threats with firearms, forced sex, threats to kill, and strangulation" to determine whether a case can be considered an act of femicide or not. The definition of femicide also relies on "inequalities in gender 'in terms of education, economic level, and employment'".

Contemporary definition by feminists

Feminist author Diana Russell narrows the definition of femicide to "the killing of females by males because they are female". Russell emphasizes that males commit femicide with sexist motives. She replaces "woman" with "female" to include girls and infants. Russell believes her definition of femicide applies to all forms of sexist killing, whether motivated by misogyny (the hatred of females), a sense of superiority over females, sexual pleasure, or the assumption of ownership over women.

Russell says: "Femicide is on the extreme end of a continuum of anti-female terror that includes a wide variety of verbal and physical abuse, such as rape, torture, sexual slavery (particularly in prostitution), incestuous and extra-familial child sexual abuse, physical and emotional battery, sexual harassment (on the phone, in the streets, at the office, and in the classroom), genital mutilation (clitoridectomies, excision, infibulations), unnecessary gynecological operations (gratuitous hysterectomies), forced heterosexuality, forced sterilization, forced motherhood (by criminalizing contraception and abortion), psychosurgery, denial of food to women in some cultures, cosmetic surgery, and other mutilations in the name of beautification. Whenever these forms of terrorism result in death, they become femicides."

She includes covert killings of women as well, such as the mass murder of female babies or sex selective abortions due to male preference in cultures such as India and China, as well as deaths related to the failure of social institutions, such as the criminalization of abortion or the prevalence of female genital mutilation.

Causes

Defined by Diana Russell, femicide includes intimate partner femicide, lesbicide, racial femicide, serial femicide, mass femicide, honor killing, dowry, and more.

• Any act of sexual terrorism that results in death is considered femicide.
• Covert femicide also takes form in the criminalization of abortion in cases where the mother's life is at risk, intentional spread of HIV/AIDS, or death as a result of female genital mutilation.

The most widespread form of femicide in the world is that committed by an intimate partner of a female. This accounts for approximately 38.6 percent of all murders of women globally, which may be an undercount.

Different areas of the world experience femicide varyingly, i.e., the Middle East and South Asia have higher rates of honor killing: the murder of women by their family, due to an actual or assumed sexual or behavioral transgression, such as adultery, sexual intercourse, or even having been raped.

Worldwide

Every year, an average of 66,000 women are violently killed globally, accounting for approximately 17% of all victims of intentional homicides.

• In 2017, 87,000 women and girls were killed globally. This means that 238 women are killed daily.
• According to a 2000 report by the U.N. Population Fund (UNFPA), approximately 5,000 women are murdered each year in honor killings.
• See: Femicide for more info by country.
  • The rates of femicide differ depending on the specific country, but of the countries with the top 25 highest femicide rates,
    • 50% are in Latin America, with number one being El Salvador.
    • Also included in the top 25 are seven European countries, three Asian countries, and one African country, South Africa.
    • Of all femicide cases in high-income countries, 70% occur in the U.S. To put that into perspective, on a global scale, the U.S. ranks 34th for intentional female homicides at a rate of 2.6 killings per 100,000 women.
  • Of all intimate partner female homicides in 2018, 92% of victims were killed by a man they knew, and 63% were killed by current husbands, boyfriends, or ex-husbands.
    • In 2021, around 45,000 women and girls worldwide were killed by their intimate partners or other family members (including fathers, mothers, uncles and brothers).
  • In a UN study, 1 in 4 women in the top 25 countries agreed that it was justifiable to be beaten or hit for arguing with their husband, or refusing to have sex with him.

Data on femicide worldwide is poor, and often countries do not report gender differences in murder statistics. In addition, reporting data on migrants is particularly scarce.

Resources & additional reading

• Wikipedia - Femicide
• Sanctuary for Families – The Silent Epidemic of Femicide int the United States; March 10, 2023
• Chicago Policy Review – Is the US Still Too Patriarchal to Talk About Women? The Silent Epidemic of Femicide in America. By: VERA JONSDOTTIR, Thursday, July 7th, 2022
• UNWOMEN - Five essential facts to know about femicide. 25 Nov 2022
• Eige – Femicide
• Global Americans – Femicide and International Women’s Rights, An epidemic of violence in Latin America
• Womankind Worldwide Resources – A Femicide Factsheet: Global Stats & Calls to Action 24 Nov 2022
• Canadian Femicide Observatory for Justice and Accountability – What is Femicide?
• Battered Women’s Support Services – Femicide is the Shadow Pandemic, 25 Apr 2022
• UN Women, Europe and Central Asia – Countries across Europe take first steps to address femicide, 4 May 2023 (image, + info)