The United States has one of the highest rates of femicide among high-income countries, with a rate of 2.9 per 100,000 women. This translates to thousands of women killed every year, often by someone they know.
According to the FBI, an estimated 4,970 female victims were murdered in 2021, with one-third of them killed by an intimate partner.
The U.S. ranks 34th worldwide for intentional female murder victimisation, yet femicide is not codified as a distinct crime in the penal code.
This absence of a legal definition complicates efforts to classify and track gender-based killings, resulting in fragmented data and an underestimation of the problem.
Femicide rate: The U.S. ranks 34th worldwide for intentional murder of females, with a rate of 2.9 per 100,000 women.
Intimate partner violence: Half of female victims of homicide in the US are killed by intimate partners.
Gun violence: Women in the U.S. are 28 times more likely to be intentionally murdered with guns than women in peer countries.
Child marriage: An estimated 300,000 minors were married between 2000 and 2018, with the vast majority being underage girls.
In a one-year global monitoring effort, the U.S. accounted for 862 reported femicide cases, the highest among 65 countries tracked, underscoring the magnitude of the crisis domestically.
The societal costs of femicide are profound, affecting families, communities, and public health.
Advocates urge policymakers to enact legislation such as the Violence Against Women Act and the U.S. National Action Plan to End Gender-Based Violence, which support prevention programs, law enforcement training, and victim services.
Globally, intimate partners or family members are responsible for 60% of femicides, equating to one woman or girl killed every 10 minutes.
In the U.S., this pattern holds true, with approximately 80 women per year killed by current or former partners, according to Office for National Statistics data and corroborated by multiple studies.
The home remains the most dangerous place for women, where violence escalates to fatal outcomes. This underscores the intersection of domestic violence and femicide, highlighting the need for targeted prevention and intervention strategies.
According to research drawing on CDC WONDER, FBI Uniform Crime Reports, and the National Violent Death Reporting System, female homicide rates in the U.S. have generally declined since the 1980s.
However, an uptick was observed in 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic, reflecting increased domestic tensions during lockdowns.
On average, about one-third of female homicides in the U.S. are committed by intimate partners, although data gaps exist due to incomplete information on victim-perpetrator relationships.
NVDRS data, which covers at least 40 states since 2018, suggest that intimate partner homicides may be higher than UCR figures indicate.
In the U.S., a clear definition of femicide is lacking, as is a surveillance system capable of identifying and classifying gender-related murders with attention to intersectional vulnerabilities.
A group of researchers on public health said to address these gaps, policymakers should include a clear definition of femicide and its various forms in the U.S. penal code; improve the accuracy and completeness of data on femicide including information on perpetrators; and make documentation of expanded SGRMIs mandatory to allow for disaggregation of data on femicides according to other intersectional vulnerabilities.
“Practical steps would include a consensus process to inform a legal definition of femicide that draws on international successes, piloting changes to femicide surveillance systems in an initial handful of states, and with better data, estimating the costs of femicide to individuals, families, vulnerable communities, and society to clarify the benefits of prevention,” stated the researchers.
Globally, 85,000 women and girls were killed intentionally in 2023. 60 per cent of these homicides –51,100- were committed by an intimate partner or a family member. 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.
