Home is the most dangerous place for women: UN report on gender violence 

An average of 140 women and girls were killed each day in 2023 by their intimate partner or a close relative, a United Nations report on gender violence has found.

About 60 percent of 85,000 women and girls killed across the world in 2023 were at the hands of an intimate partner or a family member, the 36-page report (PDF) by the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), published on Monday to mark the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women, says.

“Women and girls everywhere continue to be affected by this extreme form of gender-based violence and no region is excluded,” it says. “The home is the most dangerous place for women and girls.”

Africa features as the region with the highest number of female victims with an estimated 21,700 women and girls killed by an intimate partner or a family member in 2023. The continent also continues to account for the highest number of victims relative to the size of its population – 2.9 victims per 100,000.

There were also high rates last year in the Americas with 1.6 female victims per 100,000 and in Oceania with 1.5 per 100,000, it said. Rates were significantly lower in Asia at 0.8 victims per 100,000 and Europe at 0.6 per 100,000.

According to the report, the intentional killing of women in the private sphere in Europe and the Americas is largely by intimate partners. By contrast, the vast majority of male homicides take place outside homes and families, it said.

“Even though men and boys account for the vast majority of homicide victims, women and girls continue to be disproportionately affected by lethal violence in the private sphere,” the report said.

“An estimated 80 percent of all homicide victims in 2023 were men while 20 percent were women, but lethal violence within the family takes a much higher toll on women than men, with almost 60 percent of all women who were intentionally killed in 2023 being victims of intimate partner/family member homicide,” it said.

The report said despite efforts to prevent the killing of women and girls by countries, their killings “remain at alarmingly high levels”.

“They are often the culmination of repeated episodes of gender-based violence, which means they are preventable through timely and effective interventions,” the two agencies said.