Many European nations are intensifying efforts against both direct and indirect violence targeting women. In which places are women more susceptible to harm from someone they know?
Within the EU, women fall victim to fatal violence by partners or relatives nearly twice as often as men do.
The most recent data from Eurostat reveal a rate of 4.1 female fatalities per million inhabitants, compared to 2.2 per million for males.
Latvia has consistently recorded the highest femicide rate across the EU in both 2022 and 2023 — approximately 17 women per one million residents — as further examined by Europe in Motion.
Lithuania, a neighbouring country, held the second place in both years with 10 female deaths per one million people, followed by Austria, which reported nearly five cases in 2022 and 2023.
Which continent reports the highest femicide rate?
Except for Malta, the EU countries with the lowest femicide rates were Greece (1.8 in 2022 and 2023), Spain (2 in 2023 and 2.1 in 2022), and the Netherlands (2.3 in 2023 and 2.4 in 2022).
During the last ten years, the number of such murders within the EU has stayed fairly consistent, peaking in 2022 when 4.4 women per million were killed.
On a global scale, Africa stands out as the continent with the highest femicide rate — 30 fatalities per million inhabitants — alongside the largest total number of victims, estimated at 22,600 in 2024 according to United Nations (UN) figures.
The Americas and Oceania also exhibited elevated rates of family or partner-related femicides in 2024 (15 and 14 per million, respectively), whereas Asia (7) and the broader European continent (5) reported lower figures.
Indirect violence: What is it and which countries are addressing it?
Several European countries have recently introduced or proposed stricter laws targeting violence against women in response to increasing public awareness and demands, including France, Spain, and Italy.
In Rome, a law was approved last week establishing life imprisonment for femicides linked to, for instance, a woman’s refusal to engage in a relationship or accept limitations on her personal freedoms.
A day earlier, amid a week marked by four femicides, French parliamentarians put forward a bill containing over 50 new measures to counter domestic violence. France noted an11% rise in fatal assaults on women between 2023 and 2024.
The Minister for Gender Equality, Aurore Bergé, stated that in addition to shielding women from physical harm, the legislation aims to protect them from other controlling behaviours such as freezing bank accounts, GPS monitoring, and online harassment.
Spain’s government undertook a comparable initiative in September by proposing legislation to formally address indirect gender-based violence, which involves harmful actions intended to manipulate or intimidate victims.
The suggested amendments include prison terms of up to three years.
Earlier, in 2023, Croatia and Belgium also revised their laws to explicitly acknowledge gender-based violence.
How does ‘femicide’ differ from conventional murder?
On the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women, observed on November 25, the UN described such attacks as a «global epidemic».
According to the organisation, last year «every 10 minutes, a woman was intentionally killed by a partner or family member».
The UN further reports that women and girls are most vulnerable to being killed by someone familiar: 60% of femicide perpetrators in 2024 were intimate partners or relatives, including extended family members such as uncles.
The seriousness of this crisis led to establishing a specific category for these killings: «femicide», which the UN defines as a deliberate killing motivated by gender-related factors—for instance, «unequal power dynamics, gender stereotypes or damaging social norms» that disproportionately expose women to such risks.