Around 51,100 girls and women were killed by relatives or intimate partners worldwide last year, according to a United Nations study released on Monday.
However, the overall extent of the crime is even greater, the report by the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) and the organization UN Women stressed.
This is because there is insufficient data available on homicides outside the private sphere.
The study focussed on femicides, or the deliberate killing in which the female gender of the victim is a motive.
In 2023, Africa had the highest rate of femicides in which the victim and perpetrator were in an intimate or family relationship. The figure there was 2.9 victims per 100,000 women. In Europe, the rate was the lowest at 0.6.
According to the UN experts, the femicide rates in Northern, Southern and Eastern Europe have fallen in recent years. In Western Europe, however, slightly rising rates were observed.
The study was published on the annual International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women.
The authors of the study noted that many victims had raised the alarm about violence in their relationship before they died.
“This suggests that many killings of women are preventable,” they wrote. “Restraining orders on male partners that prohibit further contact between them and the victims of their violence are among the measures that could prevent the killing of women.”
While most femicides in Europe and the Americas are committed in private by current or former partners, the majority of perpetrators in the rest of the world are relatives.
UNODC and UN Women are therefore calling for prevention measures for families.
Last year, almost 85,000 women and girls died as a result of violent crime. In comparison, more boys and men are killed – they make up around 80% of the total number of victims.