What do we know about femicide in Italy? Data and insights from a repeated cross-sectional study

Abstract Background Gender-based violence represents a huge public health issue, affecting mental, physical health and productivity. It is a significant obstacle to achieving gender equality and the empowerment of all women. While the overall homicide rate is decreasing in Italy, femicide, the intentional killing of women due to gender-related motivations, remains stable over time. This is the first study in Italy to evaluate potential risk factors of femicide, exploring the sociodemographic characteristics of victims and perpetrators of femicides, as well as the geographic distribution across Italy, with insights into differences between the size of municipalities and between geographic areas. Methods A repeated cross-sectional study was conducted to investigate femicides in Italy from 2020 to 2023 using data sources from Non Una Di Meno, an Italian NGO, and the Italian National Institute of Statistics. Results Our preliminary findings show that the majority (83%) of homicides of women were femicides. On a final sample of 403 femicides, in most cases (94,3%) the victims were more likely to be hit by their current or former partner or by a family member. In 97% of cases perpetrator was a man. In more than 50% of cases, both the victims and the perpetrators were under 55 years old (respectively, 51,8% and 57,9%). Femicide rates was 0.33 per 100,000 women. There appear to be no significant differences between the rates of femicide as the size of the municipality and the geographic macro-area vary, highlighting the extensive spread of the phenomenon throughout the territory. Conclusions Our findings show that femicide is a systematic and widespread phenomenon that occurs mostly within the home and needs interventions at the European level to prevent systemic violence against women. Moreover, this study provides methodological considerations to define femicide, suggests improvements to data collection methods and offer insights for future research in this field. Key messages • It is important to gather robust data on gender-based homicide, as it represents a public health issue. • Femicide is a pervasive and systematic phenomenon that predominantly occurs within the home and requires intervention at the European level.