Prevention of femicide

Abstract

When referring to ‘prevention of femicide’, we refer to actions at the individual, family, and social and community levels that can reduce the likelihood of women being killed because of their gender. Strategies for prevention of femicide differ depending on the definition of femicide and the cases to which we refer. For example, prevention of femicide in intimate partner relationships is different from prevention of the killing of trafficked women, or girls being subjugated and killed. These distinct femicides are set in different contexts, involve different risk factors and therefore require different prevention strategies. However, what all femicides share is a single motivation: femicide, according to the feminist approach, and the one that enables us to explain its prevalence worldwide, is the killing of women because they are women, regardless of whether it is perpetrated by the victim’s partner, ex-partner or a non-partner. The killing of women constitutes an extreme exercise of power against them; it is perpetrated to establish control (Radford and Russell, 1992).