A new United Nations report shows about 50,000 women were killed globally last year by their “intimate partner” or family member.
This equates to 137 women per day — or nearly six every hour.
The report, released Sunday by the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), tied to the U.N.’s International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women, shows the Americas ranked third-worst globally.
“While the vast majority of homicide victims are men, women continue to pay the highest price as a result of gender inequality, discrimination and negative stereotypes,” UNODC Executive Director Yury Fedotov said in a statement that accompanied the report. “They are also the most likely to be killed by intimate partners and family.”
According to the study: “A total of 87,000 women were intentionally killed in 2017. More than half of them (58 per cent) ̶ 50,000 ̶ were killed by intimate partners or family members, meaning that 137 women across the world are killed by a member of their own family every day. More than a third (30,000) of the women intentionally killed in 2017 were killed by their current or former intimate partner ̶ someone they would normally expect to trust.”
In the United States alone, a 2017 study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention similarly found that nearly half of all female homicide victims are killed by either an intimate partner, or the partner’s family or friends.
Rachel Goldsmith, vice president of domestic violence centers at Safe Horizon, a victim’s assistance organization, noted that the the numbers in the global report are not surprising.
“In the U.S. we have known for a long time that statistically women are not being killed at the same rate by strangers or bystanders,” Goldsmith told NBC News on Monday. “The recent incident in Chicago is the most poignant example of this.”