Femicide
Written By Meera Poonai
TRIGGER WARNING: Mention of upsetting and traumatic conditions experienced by women and girls, including homicide.
What is Femicide?
Femicide is a sex-based hate crime, involving the intentional killing of women and girls, solely due to their female gender. Females are often perpetrated by family members, however can also be targeted on random accounts.
What are the different types of Femicide?
There exists many different types of femicide. The most common types of femicide include intimate, culturally-framed and non-intimate. Intimate femicide involves a female perpetrated by a current or former husband or boyfriend. The individual who commits the crime is usually intimate and well-known by the victim. Culturally-framed femicide involves a female perpetrated to protect a family’s reputation, follow traditions or adhere to wrongly interpreted religious demands. Culturally-framed femicide can be further broken down into two other types of femicide: honor-related femicide and dowry-related. Honor-related femicide involves a female perpetrated due to an assumed or actual behavioral transgression the woman is accused of. This may include adultery, rape, pregnancy outside of marriage, or many other accusations. The woman is then killed to maintain the “honour” of the family, since it is believed the woman deserved to be killed due to behaviour. Dowry-related femicide involves a newly married woman killed by her husband or in-laws for offering insufficient dowry to the family. Dowry is a payment made by the bride’s family to the groom’s family during the time of marriage. This type of femicide occurs primarily in the Indian subcontinent, since dowry is very common in these cultures. Lastly, non-intimate femicide involves a female perpetrated by a non-intimate partner, which often includes random sexual abuse and/or torture.
Other types of femicide include armed conflict femicide, female-perpetrated femicide, femicide in the context of human trafficking, genital mutilation-related femicide, lesbophobic femicide, organized crime-related femicide, racist femicide, transphobic femicide and sexual femicide.
About 35% of all murders of women globally, are committed by an intimate partner. There is ~5000 honor-related femicide cases every year. ~25000 newly married women fall victim to dowry-related femicide easy year, worldwide.
Visit the following website to learn about these different types of femicide women may experience: https://www.femicideincanada.ca/about/types.
Factors that increase the risk of a woman being a victim of Femicide.
There are many factors that may put women at an increased risk of being a victim of femicide. Pregnancy, prior abuse by the perpetrator, an abusive relationship, gender inequality in society, presence of a child from a previous relationship, LGBTQ-identyfing and Indigenous identity may all put women at an increased risk of becoming a victim to femicide. The list of risk factors that make a woman vulnerable to femicide does not end here. There are an endless number of risk factors that may put a woman at risk.
The Problem
Collecting data on femicide-related cases is VERY difficult and far from accurate. This is because many countries’ data-collection systems do not have sufficient information OR they do not release victim-perpetrator relationships or gender-related motivations for murder.
Where does Femicide occur?
Femicide can occur anywhere in the world. Based on findings from WHO, India, El Salvador and Antigua and Barbuda have the highest femicide rates worldwide.
Trends & Patterns of Femicide in Canada
In the above graph, female victim homicides dominate in all family-related homicides including family-spouse, other intimate partner, family-parent and family-other, which parallel with trends in femicide-related cases.
In the above graph, intimate partner homicide is significantly higher for females than for males. Females are at a much higher risk of falling victim to intimate partner homicide between 1995 to 2015.
The Shadow Pandemic: Femicide & COVID-19
The ‘Shadow Pandemic’ refers to the significant increase in the number of gender-based violence (GBV) against women and girls and femicide-related cases since the onset of the pandemic. Factors that may increase GBV and femicide cases during the pandemic for victims include stay-at-home measures, increased isolation of women and girls with their abused and limited communication with family and friends. Factors that may increase aggression in perpetrators include financial instability due to unemployment, escalating uncertainty, increased alcohol use, or unemployment. Increased aggression in perpetrators can trigger GBV or femicide-related cases. Unemployment is a significant risk factor since unemployment means men cannot provide for their family and they may feel powerless, causing them to exert greater violence to display control and dominance in the household.
In the months of the pandemic, domestic violence shelters and help lines around the World have been strained and overwhelmed with the number of women and GBV calls they have received.
How can we help others?
Raise awareness on this initiative by sharing it with others to gain public attention as well as to educate individuals who are unaware of the seriousness of femicide.
If you or someone you know is experiencing gender-based violence, please contact any of the following resources to talk or seek shelter:
Ontario Association of Interval & Transition Homes (24/7 staffed shelter) http://www.oaith.ca/find-help/
The Ontario Network of Sexual Assault/Domestic Violence Care and Treatment Centres https://www.sadvtreatmentcentres.ca/
Ontario Victim Services https://www.ovc.gov.on.ca/ OR call 1 (888)-579-2888
Assaulted Women’s Helpline 1 (866)-863-0511
Toronto Rape Crisis Centre (416) 597 8808
Talk4Healing (Indigenous women hotline) https://www.talk4healing.com/ OR call 1 (855)-554-HEAL
OR visit the following links for further resources: https://www.ontario.ca/page/get-help-if-you-are-experiencing-violence
https://endingviolencecanada.org/getting-help-2/
RESOURCES:
https://www.who.int/reproductivehealth/publications/violence/rhr12_38/en/
https://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/handle/10665/77421/WHO_RHR_12.38_eng.pdf
https://www.femicideincanada.ca/about/types
https://www.femicideincanada.ca/about/trends
https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/VC.IHR.PSRC.FE.P5?most_recent_value_desc=true
https://www.worldvision.ca/stories/gender-equality/femicide-a-global-tragedy-no-matter-your-gender
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/09589236.2021.1880883?journalCode=cjgs20
https://globalnews.ca/news/8040778/femicide-domestic-violence-increasing-2021-canada/
