A growing epidemic in the United States and beyond, femicide is the gender-based killings of women and girls for simply being a woman or girl. As reported by the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), “homicide is the fourth leading cause of death for girls and women one to nineteen years old, and the fifth leading cause of death for women twenty to forty-four.” Who are the perpetrators?
Nationwide statistics reveal that an overwhelming majority of the women killed in the United States are at the hands of a current or former intimate male partner. In the female homicides in 2018, alone, “92% of cases involved women or girls killed by a man they knew, 63% of whom were killed by current husbands, ex-husbands or current boyfriends.”
With nearly three women killed per day, with disproportionate rates for women of color, intimate gendered killings are happening at an alarming rate. With the needs of women and girls consistently swept under the rug, gender-based violence continues to take the lives of many innocent women and girls.
As domestic violence is turning lethal, there must be a strengthening of laws to protect violence against women, including mandatory arrests for someone accused of domestic violence.
