International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women

“Violence against women & girls is one of the most widespread of all human rights violations, and it’s gone up under COVID.” – Caroline Lucas.

Today is also the day that Femicide Census has launched its ground-breaking 10 year report into femicide in the UK – put together by Karen Ingala-Smith from NIA and her organisation Counting Dead Women. Its key findings are:

1 woman killed every 3 days

34% of women had kids under 18

62% of women killed by partner or ex

Of these, 59% had reported previous abuse

Here is an extract from the foreword: “The Femicide Census findings give the most comprehensive analysis of men’s fatal violence in the UK and raise as many questions as they answer. The one thing that is not questionable though is that every single woman and girl in this report mattered. They were loved and they are missed, and a man chose to end their life. The Femicide Census is a call to action for change.”

Dawn Furness, co-chair of Green Party Woman has said: "It is astonishing that the UK Government did not even think it pertinent to collect statistics on the number of Women who were murdered as a result of Male Violence. We need to name the problem before we can solve it. As usual, this was left to Women's Groups to highlight and the remarkable Karen Ingala Smith (from NIA). As the founder of the Femicide Census (Counting dead women project) she gave names to the murdered women in order to bring this to the Government's attention. "

One of our committee members Julia Lagoutte has written about the report in Green World and how we can start to treat femicide as the emergency it is.

You can read the report here.