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According to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, 55% of women and girls killed in 2022 died at the hands of intimate partners or family members, contexts indicative of femicide. The proportion of the remaining 45% of women and girls killed which involved sex or gender-related elements remains largely unknown. This is due to the lack of high-quality, gender-sensitive data collection tools and the few systematic efforts to more consistently and accurately document femicide. Information about femicide in marginalized and racialized communities is further affected because many of these deaths remain invisible in official data for women and girls who live – and die – at the intersections of race, poverty, ability, sexuality, and other social identities. Drawing from a recently released international statistical framework for measuring gender-related killings of women and girls, this article examines the presence of sex/gender-related motives and indicators in a Canadian sample, drawing data from publicly available information. Findings about the feasibility of documenting sex/gender-related motives and indicators generally and for specific groups of women and girls are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An introduction is presented in which the editor discusses articles in the issue on topics including the expansion of men's rights movements, the emotions of femicide perpetrators in Latin America, and the feasibility of using the United Nations Statistical Framework to identify femicide.

Femicide, the gender-related killing of women and girls, has received an unprecedented rise in international attention in the past decade, prompting increased discussions about how to define and measure femicide. Following a review of definitions and indicators, this article examines the utility of numerous sex/gender-related motives and indicators (SGRMIs) for distinguishing femicide from other homicides as well as the accessibility of these indicators in data sources typically accessed by social science researchers. Specifically, using a comprehensive database whose primary focus is femicide, the presence of SGRMIs in male-perpetrator/female-victim homicide – those killings most closely aligned with the concept of femicide – is compared to other perpetrator–victim gender combinations. Results show that multiple SGRMIs are more common in male-perpetrator/female-victim killings than other homicides, meaning they are useful for distinguishing femicide as a distinct type of violence. However, accessibility to information is weak with high proportions of missing data. Implications of these findings for prevention are discussed, including how data biases may be putting the lives of women and girls at risk and the need to emphasize prevention as the priority for data collection rather than administrative needs of governments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Femicide/feminicide has become an increasing social concern for local communities, international organizations, and national governments. In 2007, Latin American countries began enacting legislation to prevent and punish femicide/feminicide; however, relatively few researchers have assessed the scope and depth of this legislation. Using Carol Bacchi's (2009) "what's the problem represented to be" approach, this study analyzes femicide/feminicide across Latin American countries. The goal of this approach is to assess concepts that are taken for granted within policies and uncover what has been silenced through problem representations. Results provide considerations for future legislative development in Latin America and abroad. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The way in which nation states respond to femicide has become the focus of much attention in the past decade. The establishment of specialized police and prosecution units has been recommended and some countries have implemented specific legislation or criminal offences specific to femicide. Part of the challenge in moving beyond these legislative and policy initiatives is the dearth of reliable data that show how states are actually punishing crimes of femicide on the ground. Using data that document punishment outcomes in cases of femicide over four decades in Canada’s most populous province, this article examines how punishments compare for female and male homicide victims, across femicide subtypes and over time. Results show that cases involving female victims attract more punitive court responses overall than cases with male victims. Second, intimate and familial femicides are treated more leniently at several stages than other femicides. Finally, there have been positive changes in the punishment of femicide over time, paralleling legislative and policy responses to violence against women in Canada. Priorities for future research that address the role played by dominant stereotypes in punishment related to particular types of femicide as well as some women’s increased risk are highlighted. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]