Femicide Violence Against Women

Femicide: A Monster Lurking in the Shadows

Some, like Hackman, have called it a silent epidemic. Scores of women continue to be killed for no reason other than their gender. Yet, it appears that no spotlight is being shined upon this atrocity. Less than one year ago, it was Gabby Petito – who was murdered by her fiancée. At around the same time, Dr Shauna Witt’s ex-boyfriend was convicted of her murder four years earlier. How many more women will have to be killed for no mistake of their own before this issue is apportioned the attention it deserves? Ours appears to be just but a knee jerk reaction. We only show concern whenever the news media is awash with a sensational piece of yet another femicide. We all need to be concerned because the next victim could be someone close to us – perhaps a neighbor, aunt, sister, or even daughter!

In the words of Offiong, femicide could be conceptualized as the “intentional murder of women because they are women.” It has been described as one of the worst kinds of gender-based violence. According to Hackman, there is also evidence that gendered violence, including femicide, is rather rampant in the U.S. Hackman indicates that what is even more worrying is that there is an even greater number of women killed in the U.S. than in Turkey, where ‘honor killings’ of women are rather rampant. Indeed, according to Hackman, a total of 2,991 women were killed in the U.S. in 2019 alone. This is in comparison to only 474 women killed in Turkey within the same period. It would also be prudent to note that data presented by the World Health Organization (WHO) indicates that at 37%, most femicides were instigated by an intimate partner. WHO also indicates that these estimates could be grossly understated owing to the huge percentage of missing data. This is an assertion further advanced by Offiong who makes an observation to the effect that data on femicide is in most cases not recorded in an orderly and easily retrievable manner. With this in mind, there is no doubt whatsoever that femicide is a monster that lurks in the shadows.