The latest available Istat data shows that, in 2023, of 334 murders, 117 were women and 217 were men, with a murder rate of 0.57% per 100 thousand inhabitants. Seeing these data, one might think: then why is there more and more talk about feminicides and so little about male homicides? Well, it is the motives that especially make people talk about feminicides, because they reveal a violence linked to gender inequalities and emotional relationships, different from that which leads to the murders of men.
In our country, in fact, feminicides – that is, the killing of women as women — represent 82% of the murders of women, a worrying fact which has no counterpart in male murders, the motives of which can be attributed to arguments, trivial reasons (personal grudges) or organized crime.
When can a murder be defined as “femicide”
To understand the extent of the phenomenon, we must first of all understand when we talk about “femicide”: while a murder of a woman can be generic (it can have any motive: arguments, crime, robbery, gang), femicide occurs when a woman is killed precisely because she is a woman. A murder of this type, therefore, is rooted in dynamics of power, control and discrimination against women precisely because of their gender.
Femicide is almost always committed by the victim’s partner and ex-partner, but also (to a lesser extent) by family members, and the motive is almost always linked to a question of possession, jealousy, non-acceptance of a separation, or the man’s desire to prevent the woman’s autonomy.
Murders of men and women: what the data say, including numbers and motives
Let’s look carefully at the Istat data. As anticipated at the beginning, of 334 murders 117 were women and 217 were men. 93.3% of murder perpetrators are men (in 88.9% of cases of women killed and in 80.6% of men killed), and 6.7% of murders are committed by women.
In particular, in Italy, the men most at risk are in the range between 25 and 34 years (1.63 per 100 thousand inhabitants). The reason why two thirds of young adults were killed in 2023 is attributable to an argument (66.7%) or remains unspecified even though the perpetrator has been discovered (11.9%).
For women, however, the risk of being a victim of homicide increases with age. The most exposed, in fact, are the very elderly: among them there is a rate of 0.67 murders per 100 thousand women over 84, which in Italy corresponds to approximately 10 feminicides per year in this age group. Mainly, this type of feminicide happens at the hands of partners or family members, who motivate the murder with the idea of ”putting an end to the woman’s suffering”, both physical and psychological. But beyond this data, as reported by Istat, the context in which the murders of women occur is predominantly family or emotional (82% of cases). The data is no better for foreign women: in 2023, in 14 out of 16 crimes, foreign women were killed within the family.
The motives for murders, in most cases, are to be found in arguments, trivial reasons and personal grudges, but in the case of feminicides, passionate motives are also added: for female victims between 35 and 44 years old, six murders out of ten fall into these motives. In more than one case in two (51.5%) Italian women were killed by their partners (41% current and 12.8% ex-boyfriends, ex-spouses or ex-cohabitants), and the number rises for foreign women (68.7%).
But perhaps the data that speaks most clearly is the simplest: in 2023, of 63 women killed within a couple, 61 killers were their male partners (96.8%), confirming a complex picture regarding a problem that cannot be hidden: that of gender-based homicide, almost always preceded by a very specific pattern of violence.
What is considered “violence” that preludes feminicide?
Not all forms of violence lead to femicide, which is only the epilogue. In fact, preceding the latter, there may be different forms of violence, including abuse, threats and coercion which affect various spheres (physical, sexual, psychological, economic, stalking and harassment).
This type of abuse includes: beatings, physical and verbal threats, non-consensual sexual relations, manipulation, isolation of the person from friends and family, stalking, invasions of privacy, control of daily life and finances. This last point is often underestimated, but it is what often leads abused women to remain close to their companions who abuse them, because their precarious condition does not allow them to truly distance themselves. Furthermore, even before financial control (i.e. stealing money or blocking access to accounts), the partner can prevent his partner from working, making the situation even worse.
Be careful, therefore: a couple’s argument that ends, for example, in insults, is not automatically violence. It becomes so when there is a power disparity that harms the other person.
Murders in the world: what the situation is and the alarming data
Globally, approximately 81% of homicide victims are men. The global homicide rate with male victims is approximately 9.1 per 100,000 males, approximately four times that of females (approximately 2 per 100,000 females). The motives, however, almost never concern family contexts or relationships, but – just as in Italy – interpersonal conflicts, organized crime, arguments or economic reasons, which intensify especially in contexts of strong social inequalities and illegal activities (and the murderers are of the same type in almost all cases).
If men are killed above all outside the home, for women the danger is concentrated precisely in the family environment, and the data from the latest United Nations report (2023) offers a significantly serious picture of the issue. Every day, in the world, 140 women and girls die at the hands of her partner or close relative, which means a woman killed every 10 minutes (around 85,000 victims per year). But who are the killers? The 60% of these murders (51,000) were not committed by strangers, but by partners or other family members. Throughout the world, therefore, women are almost always killed by trusted people, and the causes are always attributable to issues of control and power over the lives of women, who as women must obey, under penalty of death.
The data are impressive: the continent that has the highest rates of femicide is Africa, with 21,000 women killed per year, but the data are incomplete (they fluctuate between 18,600-24,600), and the victims could be many more than those declared. In Asia the number drops, but only slightly, with 18,500 victims. Then followed by the Americas with 8,300 women killed, Europe (2,300) and Oceania, with around 300 victims. If in Europe (64%) and the Americas (58%) the majority of feminicides are committed by partners, in Africa, Asia and Oceania the nature of those who commit the crime changes: in these continents, in fact, the majority of victims of femicide were killed by family members (59%) rather than by partners (41%).
