Thematic Section: Femicide – a persistence social issue

Many decades have passed since the term ‘femicide’ was coined. During this period, social movements across the globe have helped increase awareness about this phenomenon which have served as a vital impetus for institutionalizing States’ responses against this crime. Recognizing the state’s complicity in such killings, the term ‘feminicide’ was more recently introduced and has gained momentum in some countries/regions and for some populations of women and girls more specifically. In tandem, a plethora of research in sociology and other disciplines has improved upon and produced data, analytical insights, and contributed to scholarly and political debates about this topic. At least 22 countries have included femicide or feminicide as a specific type of homicide in their legislation or criminal codes. Femicide has also made its way into popular culture, with films, series, and literary works focusing on this extreme form of violence against women.

Nonetheless, this crime remains a persistent social issue. As the latest report delivered by the United Nations Office on Drug and Crime states, globally, 2022 recorded the highest yearly number of intentional killings of women and girls in the past two decades with femicide rates in some countries reaching a plateau, while having spiked in others, such as Mexico (UNODC, 2023). Other regions, like North America, have also experienced significant increases, including Canada (Statistics Canada, 2023). The expansion of men’s rights movements and the accompanying backlash activism is a clear indication of the persistence of violent groups underpinned by misogyny and white supremacy (Botto and Gottzén, 2023). In this context, the uprising of right-wing governments has gone hand in hand with a wave of conservatism which has targeted researchers working with gender-based violence, such as in Argentina, Brazil, and the United States (Hanafi, 2020).

There are also still many unanswered questions about femicide. While research has expanded our knowledge and views on the root causes of this crime and its statistical trends, among other aspects, its advance has also made even more visible the remaining lagunas. For example, how can we better document and understand the role of community and societal contributors to femicide? Why have specific groups of women and girls most at risk (e.g., indigenous and other racialized minority women, disabled women, rural women, and girls) remained so over the past few decades despite increased recognition and efforts to prevent their violent victimization? How can we better understand what has worked and what has not worked in our femicide prevention efforts?

Evolving out of discussions at the XX ISA World Congress of Sociology in Melbourne, Australia, in 2023, this thematic section of International Sociology attempts to capture some of the current debates and issues about femicide across the globe. Specifically, the newly formed Thematic Group 11 ‘Violence and Society’ ¹ was the platform through which we started a conversation about these scholarly discussions being held in different continents through targeted sessions on this topic.

This thematic section offers papers from three countries (e.g. South Africa, Mexico, and Canada) and one paper with a Latin American multi-country approach (including Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Honduras, Mexico, and Venezuela). Thus, this section aims to foster a dialogue across the realities of these three continents. Each article approaches femicide in different ways, highlighting the various theoretical frameworks and methods used. This heterogeneity shows the complex nature of this crime and, at the same time, the discussion has been provoked by inspecting femicide from different angles.

In Querying Feminicide Data Ecosystems in Mexico, written by Saide Mobayed Vega and Maria Gargiulo, we see a sociologist and a statistician join forces to investigate the co-production and co-creation of feminicide data ecosystems in Mexico. Focusing on two primary governmental sources, these authors argue that feminicide data ecosystems in that country measure different concepts, use different information sources and methodologies, and were designed with distinct uses in mind. Their contribution highlights what they refer to as four crucial frictions between the data sources examined. Their work also seeks to act as a guide for assessing and understanding feminicide data, to increase communications across stakeholders, and, ultimately, to help prompt further examinations of data ecosystems grappling with social justice and accountability against feminicide and beyond.

In Sexual and non-sexual femicide in South Africa: Comparing two studies 2009 and 2017, Naeemah Abrahams, Shibe Mhlongo, Esnat Chirwa, Bianca Dekel, Asiphe Ketelo, Shanaaz Mathews, and Rachel Jewkes describe sexual femicides – involving the rape and murder of women – among women 14 years and above, using two national femicide surveys. The authors show that sexual femicide, while not being well described and reported in literature, is not rare in South Africa. Furthermore, this study indicates an increased risk among younger women, those living in rural areas and the perpetration being performed by strangers in 2017. This article successfully makes the case for the value of documenting sexual femicides over time in a country with high levels of gender-based violence.

In Fear, Helplessness, Pain, Anger: The narrated emotions of femicide perpetrators in Latin America, Di Marco and Sandberg argue that, in order to fully understand intimate partner femicide, we need to delve into the narrated emotions of perpetrators and scale up the analysis to consider the similarities in different social settings. Drawing upon a micro-sociological understanding of violence, this article shows that certain embodied emotions (feeling threatened, trapped and judged, jealous and belittled, and anger) are prevalent in perpetrators from Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Honduras, Mexico, and Venezuela. The authors highlight that perpetrators resort to lethal violence as a means to regulate self-worth and remediate actions they felt were disruptive. Furthermore, they advocate for conceptualizing femicide as a product of a shared pervasive emotional economy, in which embodied feelings are key for maintaining a gendered social order. This research serves as a counterpoint to the current trend in medicalizing violence and studying lethal violence solely through background variables (e.g. education, prior convictions, etc.).

In Identifying femicide using the United Nations Statistical Framework: Exploring the feasibility of sex/gender-related motives and indicators to inform prevention, Myrna Dawson, Haleakala Angus, and Angelika Zecha examine the usefulness of the newly released statistical framework on femicide/feminicide to better understand what it means to say that women and girls are killed because they are women and girls. Specifically, drawing from an initial set of indicators/motives identified by United Nations’ consultations with experts globally, the authors examine how common they are in a sample of killings of women and girls in one country. Their findings highlight the utility of the statistical framework as well as existing data challenges that may prevent a full understanding of femicide and its indicators. One mechanism for addressing these challenges – femicide review committees – is briefly introduced for consideration.

We hope this section helps to spark debates about femicide and its many unanswered questions. Primarily, we aspire to carve out a space for dialogue between scholars working on the same issue, but from different theoretical, methodological, and geopolitical positions. This section serves as a platform to showcase the persistent need to talk about violence in our societies, its heterogeneity and need for action. Ultimately, our goal is to catalyze meaningful and critical dialogue in the context of increasing backlash, conservatism, and changing political landscape.