Recently, a ‘Serial killer’ was arrested in Gujarat, India for rape-murder of a 19-year-old girl. He was arrested after her body was found on November 14 near the tracks close to Udvada railway station in Valsad district. He is alleged as a serial killer, involved in murders across four states, by the Gujarat police.
The teenager was returning home from tuition in the evening when she was attacked, raped and murdered, officials said. A day before his arrest, he had allegedly robbed and murdered a woman on a train near in Telangana. He traveled extensively and kept changing his location. It is found that he is involved in at least four cases of loot and murder on trains and at railway stations in Karnataka, West Bengal, Telangana and Maharashtra.
Only a few days back, a Mangaluru District and Sessions court sentenced to death three persons on finding them guilty of the rape and murder of an “eight-year-old girl” at a tile factory, on the outskirts of Mangaluru, in 2021.
In fact, we daily come across the horrible killings of women or girls, in particular by the masculine section on account of her gender, and this is sheer ‘FEMICIDE’.
As per United Nations’ new report it is estimated that there were 85,000+ cases of femicide in the year 2023. There are instances where a woman is targeted because of her gender, either killed by an intimate partner, a close relative, a rapist or a stranger who is randomly assaulting females.
The report also finds that the majority of those women, about 51,100, were killed by a husband, partner or a family member. These figures are likely undercounts because many countries around the world don’t collect data on femicide.
Only a few days back, women staged a silent protest against the rape and killing of a trainee doctor at a government hospital in Nagaon District of Assam, India. Again, women and their counterpart men doctors protested country wide against the rape and killing of a doctor at a government hospital in Kolkata (India).
The Chief of the Ending Violence Against Women section at U.N. Women, Kalliopi Mingeirou holds: “This is a war against women”. The report also notes that femicide numbers are high despite laws meant to prevent them. South Africa has some of the most progressive laws on violence against women but one of the highest rates of femicide, according to an operations manager Ronel Koekemoer at ‘Gender Rights in Tech’, a group that seeks justice for murdered women.
Women around the world call for stronger measures to stop femicide— and justice for women who are killed by partners, family members and rapists. Women demonstrated outside the Reclusorio Oriente in Mexico City in January 2023, demanding justice for a woman who was reportedly killed by her former partner.
Activists from a feminist group in Germany protested against the government’s insufficient action to prevent femicide. Women marched during a protest in Pristina, Kosovo, after the femicide of a 21-year-old woman. They demanded a tougher policy against perpetrators of gender-based violence.
Koekemoer, who has also worked with survivors of sexual violence, says she has repeatedly seen the failure of the legal system to protect women. “I can’t tell you how many times when the perpetrator would get bail, the survivor was basically told by the prosecutor, it’s got a lot to do with the capacity in holding cells and in the prisons, and … that’s more of the consideration than the survivor’s actual safety”.
Despite the grim findings in the report, the U.N.’s Mingeirou says some countries have also seen incremental progress in protecting women and girls.
Femicide is a universal problem; women and girls are victims of femicide everywhere in the world. But some places have higher numbers and rates.
In 2023, Africa had the greatest regional number of intimate partner/family-related femicides: 21,700. It also had the highest rate of femicides: 2.9 per 100,000 of its female population.
The Americas had a lower number of intimate partner/family related femicides — 8,300 — but the second highest rate of 1.6 per 100,000 women.
“If you look at Central America, some of the most important reasons why women migrate, especially with their children, is because of the fear of femicide,” says Beatriz Garcia Nice, who lives in Ecuador and leads the Project on Gender Based Violence at the Wilson Center, a non-partisan think tank.
Europe had the lowest rate of violence per female population — 0.6 per 100,000 women. Researchers say gender equality there leads to more financial independence for women. “That helps women be more capable to distance themselves from situations that might put them in danger,” Nice says.
The thing to think more now is: “Why laws don’t always bring Justice?”
There are studies from several countries which show that many women who were killed had previously reported violence from their intimate partners to the police.
For example, the National Directorate of the Judicial Police in France looked at intimate partner femicide cases between 2019-2022. According to their findings, in 37% of those cases the woman who was killed had suffered previous violence at the hands of their partner. And only in 7% of those instances had a restraining order been issued for the male partner. This lack of regard for ongoing threats is a recurring theme in other countries too, says Kalliopi Mingeirou.
“The police were ignoring these calls, dismissing the need of these women to have help and assistance, and in the end, [the women] got killed,” she says.
Lack of enforcement of existing laws is a major hurdle. Mexico has some of the strongest laws on femicide and gender-based violence, according to Beatriz Garcia Nice. “Yet it’s one of the most violent countries for women,” she says. “In Mexico, between 2018 and 2020, 93% of known femicide cases were not prosecuted. That’s insane.”
That lack of follow-up has led women to mistrust the system and not report cases of violence, she says — because they know the perpetrator won’t be prosecuted.
“Impunity is really pervasive,” says Mingeirou. “Because women do not trust that they will get justice through the police and judicial systems.”
In South Africa, Ronel Koekemoer says she’s seen how perpetrators take advantage of gaps in enforcement. “Then there’s no incentive for them to stop their violent behavior,” Koekemoer says. “At worst, it’s almost like an inconvenience for the perpetrator more than it’s a deterrent. And that, I think, is terrifying.”
It’s not only a lack of enforcement that creates high impunity for perpetrators of femicide. There are social and cultural elements at play. Koekemoer knows of a case where a woman was beaten to death by her husband — she says he confessed in a drunken phone call to an aunt. But then, she says, he paid family members to keep silent – even though she tried to convince them to go to the police.
Faced with an increase of violence against women, the government of Ecuador has collaborated with local and global organizations, including the U.N., to create more shelters for women at risk of violence in their home.
And in Colombia, a crisis manager now looks at reports of gender-based violence so the police and social services are working together.
But Mingeirou, Nice and Koekemoer all say a lot of work needs to be done to address the root causes of femicide. “It’s a bottom-up approach, and that’s what makes it so difficult, because it starts from the home,” Nice says. “It starts from giving the same number of chores to a boy and a girl.”
“We really have to ask everyone to play his/her own role to bring gender equality and to address violence against women and girls,” Mingeirou says. “Support your local women’s rights organization, become a part of the advocacy. Be a bystander and intervene when you hear sexist comments. All of us have a role to play, and we have to do it together in order to have a world which is equal, just and free of violence.”
UN report says that an average of 140 women and girls were killed each day in 2023 by their intimate partner or close relative. Thousands rally across the world calling for end to violence against women. Demonstrators hold signs with the names of victims of gender-based violence, during a protest to mark the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women. Tens of thousands of people took to the streets in cities around the world to mark the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women. The deadliest place for women is at home and 140 women and girls on average were killed by an intimate partner or family member each day last year.
Thousands protested against sexual violence in France. The protests come two days before the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women. Demonstrators march against violence against women. French prosecutors seek 20 years for Dominique Pelicot in mass rape case. The 71-year-old Frenchman drugged his wife and invited dozens of strangers to rape her over a nine-year period.
UN Women’s Deputy Executive Director informs that women have been killed by their loved ones for a long time and the trend is continuing because underlying issues haven’t been addressed – especially gender stereotyping and social norms. “This is killing which is associated with power over women, and it continues because of the continuing impunity for violent attacks against women”. There were 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.
The numbers 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. The report said that despite efforts to prevent the killing of women and girls by countries, their killings “remain at
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Commencing teaching in his early twenties, Prof Aggarwal has diverse experience of great tenure in the top institutions not only as an educationist, administrator, editor, author but also promoting youth and its achievements through the nicest possible content framing. A revolutionary to the core, he is also keen to address the society around him for its betterment and growth on positive notes while imbibing the true team spirit the work force along with.
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