By Chloe Beaufoy
The UN’s latest figures on femicide are not just chilling numbers. They are a map of what the world chooses to ignore until it is too late. The report shows that in 2024, about fifty thousand women and girls were killed by an intimate partner or a family member. That is roughly one woman every ten minutes. These killings made up most of the intentional deaths of women that year. The data repeats the same truth seen across continents. Women are more likely to be killed by someone they know than by a stranger. And before that fatal moment, there was usually a long road of warning signs that went unaddressed.
This is not a tragic coincidence. It is a system failure. A global one.
People read these numbers and imagine dramatic outbursts. A sudden argument. A moment of rage. A crime of passion. The reality is usually slower and far more predictable. Many of these women were already in danger long before the final attack. They were controlled, monitored, mocked, isolated or threatened. They lived under rules created by the same people who claimed to love them. They sometimes tried to leave, but the support systems around them were weak, judgmental or inaccessible. And when they reported earlier incidents, the response was either slow or nonexistent.
Femicide is rarely the first act. It is often the last act.
Across different regions, the pattern is the same. Early violence is dismissed. Institutions drag their feet. Families encourage silence because they do not want the shame. Religious and cultural structures teach women to be patient. Social media creates pressure to present a perfect relationship. And when things get worse, the world acts surprised. As if it had not already watched the house fill with smoke before the fire started.
The global system is not designed to protect women. It is built to manage problems, not prevent them.
Look at justice systems in many countries. Reports disappear. Police officers tell victims to go home and resolve it. Courts take years to hear cases. Protection orders are not enforced. In some places, marital rape is not even recognised as a crime. When the law does not name the violence, people assume it is not serious. This is how the cycle continues. Quietly at first. Then loudly.
And the data problem makes it worse. Many countries do not track femicide properly. Some do not separate killings of women from general homicide records. Without proper data, governments cannot design smart interventions. They cannot identify high-risk groups. They cannot measure progress. They cannot create policy that responds to real patterns. The UN report warns that the numbers we have are still an undercount. The real figure is higher.
If a country cannot even count how many women are being killed, how can it claim it is trying to stop it.
There is another layer. Femicide as the end of a continuum that society treats as normal. Think about how girls are told to be careful. How women are told to be polite to avoid provoking men. How jokes about control and jealousy are romanticised. How abusive behaviour is framed as passion. How neighbours hear fights and keep quiet. How communities urge women to endure hardship for the sake of family unity. All of this creates the perfect environment for violence to grow quietly.
The world spends more time advising women on how to survive than advising men on how to behave.
The UN report also highlights important regional patterns. Africa recorded the highest number of intimate partner and family-related femicides. This does not mean African women are weaker or more vulnerable. It means the social and legal structures around them are stretched. Economic pressure, weak enforcement of protective laws, cultural expectations and limited access to safe shelters all combine to make escape difficult. Many African women are resilient, but resilience is not the same as safety.
Globally, digital violence has also become an early warning sign. Constant checking of phones. Password demands. Tracking apps disguised as concern. Threats delivered through anonymous messages. Online stalking wrapped in affection. These behaviours sit at the beginning of the chain. Yet most countries do not treat them as credible threats. By the time digital control becomes physical control, the danger is already deep.
In wealthy countries, the situation is not much better. The systems look more polished. The processes look more structured. Yet women still slip through gaps. Women still return home because courts delay hearings. Women still face pressure to keep families intact. Women still struggle to be believed.
The root problem is the same everywhere. A world that treats violence against women as a series of isolated incidents instead of a predictable pattern. A world that waits for bruises before believing emotional abuse. A world that listens more carefully to a man’s excuses than to a woman’s fear. A world that expects women to endure until the breaking point.
Femicide becomes the headline, but the real story started long before.
If we want to reduce these numbers, the conversation must shift. The focus cannot remain on punishment after death. Prevention must become the standard. That means building stronger early response systems. Training police to take emotional abuse seriously. Creating fast and accessible reporting pathways. Funding shelters so women have somewhere to go.
Teaching communities to recognise control as a form of violence. Normalising conversations about leaving early. Protecting women who speak up. Engaging men and boys in conversations about entitlement, not anger management.
This also means rewriting the cultural script that shapes relationships. Love should not require fear. Respect should not demand silence. Commitment should not justify control. Families should not hide violence because they fear gossip. Institutions should not require women to prove their danger. Men should not see a woman’s independence as a challenge to overcome.
If femicide is the final step, then everything before it is the trail we should be following.
The UN report calls for stronger data collection. Better laws. Faster response. More funding. It calls for collaboration between governments, civil society and service providers. All of this matters. But what matters even more is the collective decision to believe women early. To value their safety more than tradition. To see the signs before they turn deadly.
Femicide is not sudden. It grows in silence. And the silence comes from systems that choose not to listen.
The numbers are horrifying, but they are also a chance to change direction. The world has enough data to understand the problem. What it needs now is the will to act. Women should not have to fight for freedom inside their own homes. They should not become statistics before the system pays attention. And they should not have to navigate danger in places that should offer peace.
A woman killed by someone close to her is not a mystery. It is the last chapter of a story society refused to interrupt.
