Cases Of Femicide Research Articles

Complicit masculinity of judges

The paper focuses on how unjust provocation reduction, regulated in Article 29 of the Turkish Penal Code, is applied in cases of violence against women, LGBTI, and transgender individuals in Turkey, also known as "masculinity sentence reduction" by feminist lawyers. In particular, I will look into case files in which the "masculinity defence" made by almost all perpetrators in femicide cases is accepted by the court as a justification for reducing the sentence of the perpetrator. I will examine how masculinity is portrayed in judicial decisions, specifically looking at provocation defences to demonstrate how jurisdiction plays a part in perpetuating masculine domination within society. Using theories of masculinity and masculine domination, I will try to reveal the contribution of judges to the "masculine legal culture" as a form of "complicit masculinity".

Femicide in Ireland 2012–2023

IntroductionFemicide represents the dramatic end-point on a spectrum of violence against women and is an increasingly prevalent medico-legal issue. Whilst there is no definition of femicide in the Irish legal system, femicide can be understood as the gender based killing of women or girls.1 The pervasiveness of gender-based violence against women is a growing cause for concern with 2018 estimates by the World Health Organisation (WHO) revealing that 1 in 3 women have experienced Intimate Partner Violence (IPV).2 Femicide remains poorly defined and underreported worldwide due to enduring stigmatisation, shame and a lack of official statistics addressing national femicide rates. AimThe aim of this study was to explore Irish cases of femicide, quantify the prevalence of femicide in Ireland and identify any emerging trends over a 12-year-period. MethodsAll homicides referred to the Office of the State Pathologist (OSP) from 2012 to 2023 were reviewed and a total of 97 cases of femicide were ?identified and included in this study. ResultsFemicide rates increased from 1 in 5 (19 %) homicides referred to the OSP in 2012–2020 to 3 in 10 from 2021 to 2023 (29 %). Domestic femicides accounted for 74 % of cases, with 41 % of women murdered in the home they shared with their killer. 56 % of women were killed by a current or former intimate partner and 20 % by a family member. Sharp force injuries were present in 75 % of femicides associated with a history of sexual violence. These cases had the highest average number of injuries per case (n = 30) and a significantly lower average age than that of the entire cohort (19 years versus 41 years). ConclusionThe true scale of gender-based violence against women remains largely hidden due to a lack of focused official statistics and a clear definition of femicide. As populations become more diverse, and displacement secondary to environmental, or humanitarian crises becomes more common, it is essential that official data is collected in order to understand and ultimately prevent gender-based violence in this vulnerable cohort.

Gender Inequality and Media Representation: A Critical Discourse Analysis of Femicide Coverage in Indonesia

Femicide, recognized by the UN as the killing of women based on honor, sexual orientation, or gender identity, is a severe manifestation of gender inequality and sex-based violence. Often linked to domestic violence, sexual harassment, and ongoing trauma, femicide represents one of the most extreme forms of violence against women. In 2023, 159 cases of femicide in Indonesia were reported, with most committed by intimate partners (Komnas Perempuan). This study examines how femicide cases were reported by three major Indonesian online media outlets—Kompas.com, Republika.co.id, and Tirto.id—analyzing nine news articles focused on harassment, domestic violence, and murder. Using Sara Mills' critical discourse analysis (CDA), the research explores how these media portray gender injustice against women. The findings reveal that women are consistently depicted as weak and powerless, trapped in a patriarchal culture that normalizes violence against them. This portrayal reinforces gender stereotypes, weakening legal responses and perpetuating male dominance. The study underscores the need for more balanced and empowering media representations of women to challenge the deep-rooted gender inequalities in society.

Analysing Femicide and Antinationalism in The Nirbhaya Case: A Feminist Revisionist Mythmaking Reading of Clea Chakraverty's La Voix de Sita

Violence against women often stems from gender inequality, societal structures such as patriarchy, impunity, and institutional violence. Despite the remarkable progress it has made in establishing the representation of women in all fields, India still finds itself an unsafe country for women, with multiple cases of femicide reported every year. The present paper proposes a close look at violence against women in India through a multidisciplinary reading of Clea Chakravarty’s novel La Voix de Sita [Sita’s Voice] which is a retelling of the 2012 Delhi gang rape. Commonly known as the Nirbhaya Case, it ushered a lot of debates around women’s modesty and morality, alongside controversial anti-feminist remarks by the dominant misinformed strata of society on women being responsible for crimes done against them and the branding of feminism as anti-national. By approaching the revisionist mythmaking of Indian epics in the novel through a feminist lens, the paper also traces the root cause of violence against women in India by analysing media reports, interviews, and anecdotes focused on the case.

When missing becomes murder: An analysis of missing-femicide cases from the Republic of Ireland.

Many femicide cases are initially reported as missing persons to the police. Women who go missing have a greater risk of being a victim of homicide. This study explores the circumstances surrounding the disappearance and killing of women and girls in the Republic of Ireland from 1962 to 2023. A total of fifty-four cases were analysed, 52 cases were homicides. Most femicides occurred during 1990-1999 (n = 13; 24%) and 2000-2009 (n = 17; 32%). Twenty-five victims knew the offender and the leading cause of death was strangulation with 27 cases. Dumping/leaving the body on open ground with little or no concealment was the predominant method of disposal. The leading risk factors were the engagement of the victim in a fight or row before disappearance and domestic violence. The 'suicide narrative' should be treated with extreme caution in the disappearance of women.

Worth a Thousand Words: Crime Scenes Represented by Photojournalists and Forensic Photographers in Brazil

ABSTRACT This article compares how crime scenes are represented by photojournalists and forensic photographers in the city of Brasília. It starts from the premise that crime scene photography adheres to the social and professional contexts of the professional group that is taking it who, in turn, determines its identities, practices and conventions. The methodology consists of an analysis of 168 photos taken of three cases of femicide that occurred between 2016 and 2019, and in-depth interviews conducted with three photojournalists and three forensic photographers. News photographs place their importance on the selection of information that is going to be shown to their audience, usually choosing people and elements that evoke emotions. Forensic photographers emphasize documentation and control, using high-angle shots to capture everything. Both fields claim objectivity in their production, but in opposite ways, as forensic photography attempts to prove what is shown, and news photography hides and distorts elements to appeal to its audience. This paper looks at the role photography plays in building social reality, showing the same scene from the same incident and how its representation may differ according to who makes the image, the protocols they follow, and also who these images are taken for.

Dimensión social y jurídica del feminicidio en el municipio de Ciudad Juárez, Chih., México.

Femicide is an embedded problem in the urban area of Juarez, Chihuahua since the beginning of the 1990s decade. This paper adopts the feminist perspective and the categories proposed by both author Julia Monarrez and legal sociology. The aim is to update the victims’ sociodemographic profile and, subsequently, to identify whether Monarrez's categories have been incorporated into the legal dimension when addressing the problem. A qualitative-descriptive methodology is conducted using as empirical evidence the 2239 cases’ Femicide Database for the period 1993 to 2021. Also, a contrasting analysis between the social reality of the phenomenon and its integration into the legal dimension is developed by a documentary type methodology. In conclusion, there is a gap between the two scopes since Chihuahua is the last state in Mexico to include the criminal offense of femicide into its penal code, despite the state's three-decade record of femicide cases.

Prevention and combating of femicide in the Republic of Moldova

Femicide (the killing of women/girls by men) is an extreme form of violence against women and girls and is influenced by hatred, contempt, pleasure, pride. This can take place in both the private and the public sphere, with the perpetrators often being intimate partners, family members or people who know the victim. This article presents the analysis of the cases of femicide that occurred in 2022 in the Republic of Moldova and the actions taken by the authorities to prevent and combat this phenomenon. The author analyzed the death cases that came to the attention of the Commission for monitoring and analyzing cases of family violence resulting in death or serious bodily injury of the victims, the particularities of the cases of femicide, the profile of victims and perpetrators, preventive measures and punishments applied by different institutions, highlighting some systemic problems and bad practices that need to be fixed.

Femicide in Campinas, São Paulo, Brazil: Matched case-control study

Amid the pandemic of violence against women, it is imperative to identify the contributing factors to lethal forms of violence against them. Femicides are the result of the intersection of variables that increase women’s vulnerability. This study seeks to estimate the risk factors associated with death due to femicide in Campinas, São Paulo, Brazil. We considered sociodemographic variables, employment, exposure to violence, and psychoactive substance use. Our analysis employed conditional logistic regression. Using a case-control study design, we paired femicide cases with female controls from the general population, matching them by age and human development index, with a ratio of four controls per case. We analyzed 24 femicide cases and 96 controls.Women in the femicide group had lower educational attainment and were more likely to originate from outside the state of São Paulo. They predominantly held informal jobs, had experienced physical violence from intimate partners within the last 30 days, and exhibited higher alcohol, crack, and antidepressant consumption. Women in the femicide group reported more exposure to threats compared to those in the control group. Two variables significantly explained the likelihood of being a femicide case: a history of intimate partner violence in the last 30 days (OR 73.3, 95% CI: 8.1 to 661.7) and originating from outside the state of São Paulo (OR 6.5, 95% CI: 1.7 to 25.2). In this text, we discuss the findings and methodological challenges encountered in researching lethal violence against women.

Femicide: the georeferencing of cases in a brazilian capital and its metropolitan region

The aim of this research was to evaluate the spatial distribution of cases of femicides attended by the Instituto Medico Legal de São Luís/MA, between the years 2015 and 2021, according to the municipalities and neighborhoods of the occurrences. Cases referring to female victims were included in the research when it arrived for forensic examination and who presented in its Necropsy Requests and/or Police Report the classification of Qualified Homicide - Femicide. After registering the data in a spreadsheet editor, the addresses were punctuated in the Google Earth Program. The hot plots were produced by the ArcGIS Software. In the Kernel density map, there was a quantification of the relationships of the points within a radius of 5km, due to the low concentration of data. The total number of corpses analyzed at the IML was 9,301 cases, among which 1,111 were women, only 49 cases were classified as femicide, a prevalence of 4.41%. Femicide cases were observed in 14 different municipalities in Maranhão, with the city of São Luís with the highest number of registered cases. The subtypification of femicide is a serious problem due to the strict protocol in the search for traces that should be applied to all cases of violent death against women.

Enhancing the Assessment of Coercive Control in Spanish Femicide Cases: A Nationally Representative Qualitative Analysis

AbstractPurposeCoercive control is a power dynamic central to intimate partner violence (IPV) and consists of tactics to limit one’s partner’s autonomy through constraint, regulation of everyday life, isolation, pursuit, and intimidation and physical force. Such tactics may potentially signal a risk for future lethal or near lethal violence; hence, proper evaluation may enhance the utility of clinical femicide risk assessments. The goal of this study is to explore coercive control behaviors preceding partner femicides in Spain with the intention to provide guidance for its assessment by first responders and law enforcement.MethodsResearchers from the Department of State for Security of the Ministry of Interior collected a nationally representative sample of 150 femicides (2006–2016). Qualitative data included 958 semi-structured interviews with victims and offenders’ social networks, which provided information about relationship dynamics leading up to the murders. Additionally, 225 interviews with law enforcement and occasionally offenders were used to corroborate and contextualize victim and offender social networks.ResultsQualitative analysis indicated four indicators of coercive control (i.e., microregulation and restriction, victim isolation, surveillance and pursuit, and physical violence), which were present in 85% of the cases. While these indicators were commonly present, their manifestation varied based on relationship history and victims’ responses.ConclusionThe findings suggest that incorporating coercive control indicia into clinical femicide risk assessments is useful and may enhance their accuracy.

Victim-perpetrator relationship, age and method of homicide in intimate and non-intimate cases of femicide from the republic of Ireland.

This study presents a review of femicides over 31 years (1991-2021) from the Republic of Ireland. A total of 253 cases were located and reviewed, of those 125 were intimate partner homicides (IPH) and 128 non-intimate homicides (NIH). One hundred and ninety-nine (78%) girls and women were killed by a male known to them - intimate partner (husband, partner, boyfriend, ex-partner, ex-boyfriend) (n = 125; 48%), family members (son, grandson, brother, cousin) (n = 25; 10%) and/or acquaintances (n = 49; 19%) from adolescence to old age. Thirty-one (12%) were killed by a stranger and 23 cases remain unsolved at this time. The method of killing depended on the relationship and age of the victim and perpetrator. The majority of IPH victims were less than 45 years of age (n = 101). Twenty-four were over 45 years of which six were over 60 years of age. The leading method of killing in IPHs was stabbing and strangulation and this was more prevalent in those aged between 26 and 45 years. As age increases, IPH decreases with the exception of cases of IP homicide-suicide. Adolescents (13-19 years) and young women (20-25 years) were more often killed by strangulation. Strangulation was also the leading cause of death in stranger killings particularly with sexual violence. There were 20 cases of matricide, with 17 perpetrators suffering from a mental illness at the time of the killing. The leading method of homicide in non-intimate homicides was blunt force trauma.

Feminicide in Women Victims of Violence during the Pandemic in Peru

The femicide in women victims of violence during the pandemic in Peru, aims to determine the increase in femicide during the pandemic. Femicide has been taking place for a long time, since this is an extreme point where many women have a violent death, this can be caused by their partner or ex-partner, and often by unknown persons with no link to the victims. Likewise, there are different types of victims and the typology of femicides. The sample was made up of all the women who were victims of femicide during the 2020 pandemic, a total of 137 cases of femicide in Peru, where they have been classied according to the place where the case occurred (macro-regions), their age (age group at they belong) and how the femicide occurred. The researchdesignisnon-experimentalwithaquantitative,descriptiveandretrospective approach. The search was carried out in information portals at the Peru level, thus nding that the INEI 2021 statistics book was the one that provided the most precise information regarding cases of femicide in Peru. In relation to the results obtained, a variation of cases of femicide during the pandemic in relation to previous years of -4% is observed. Being the most prevalent intimate femicide with ages from 18 to 29 years, thus stating that the victims suffered physical violence before the femicide was carried out.

Analyzing two decades of intimate partner femicide-suicides in Türkiye

Intimate partner femicide-suicide (IPF–S) is an understudied subgroup of homicide–suicide deaths. Limited research has been conducted on IPF-Ss in the Eastern Mediterranean region. This study thus aimed to evaluate the characteristics of IPF-Ss that occurred in Türkiye between 2000 and 2019. IPF-Ss (n = 226) were extracted from electronic news stories. Data on victims, perpetrators, their relationships, and incidents of murder and suicide were collected. Descriptive statistics were calculated, and logistic regression analysis, mortality rates, and proportion of IPF-S in femicide calculations were conducted, showing that 13.3% of the femicides (n = 1699) were IPF-Ss. The IPF-Ss increased in 5-year intervals and were the highest during the 2015–2019 period (62.5%). Victims were married in 48.2% of the cases and 56% were aged <35 years, while 51.3% of the perpetrators were married and 52.6% were aged >40 years. In 42.0% of the cases, the perpetrator lived with the victim. Most (79.2%) of the cases took place in urban settlements, and the perpetrators used firearms in 84.1% of femicide cases. Firearm use was the most common method in cases where IPF-S was planned (OR = 2.98), when the IPF-S method was the same (OR = 29.6), and when the perpetrator committed suicide (OR = 7.82). In addition, it was found that firearm ownership is an important risk factor for IPF-S in Türkiye. Therefore, we recommend legislation to restrict firearms, as well as new measures to prevent illegal access to weapons.

No More Women Killed in Spain! A Collaborative Femicide Prevention Effort of a Police-Led Team of Ministry of Interior and Academia

Abstract With the turn of the new century, the Spanish government developed a series of initiatives to eradicate gender violence and intimate partner femicides. Among these initiatives, the Secretary of State for Security (SSS) of the Ministry of Interior organized a National Project (Team) for the Detailed Review of Intimate Partner Homicides—a police-led team that partnered with 21 Spanish universities and several correctional facilities across 50 provinces—to conduct a concurrent embedded, correlational mixed-methods study of a nationally representative sample of 171 femicide cases and a control group of 210 non-lethal partner abuse cases (2006–2021). The results of this study served to improve current law enforcement femicide risk prediction tools (Valoracion Policial del Riesgo, VPR) and to develop different offender typologies aiming at guiding treatment interventions. New recommendations were also provided to enhance collaboration between law enforcement and other agencies so extant partner violence cases can be appropriately managed.

Analysis of femicide cases in Campinas, SP, Brazil, from 2018 to 2019 through the ecological model of violence.

Lethal violence against women is a complex and multidimensional phenomenon in which a wide number of factors intersect and converge to make a femicide happen at a specific time and place. The main factors that contributed to the occurrence of femicides in the city of Campinas were identified from January 2018 to December 2019. Interviews were conducted with family members, friends, neighbors, witnesses, and health agents about 24 femicides using the verbal autopsy technique. The autopsies were supplemented, when possible, with information from the media and clinical autopsy reports. For the data analysis process, narratives of the cases were carried out, recovering the most important aspects of the verbal autopsies and organizing the factors found in the four levels of the ecological model of violence used by the World Health Organization: individual, relational, community, and social. The analysis was structured in categories following a deductive approach. Starting from particular cases delimited in time (2018 and 2019) and in space (municipality of Campinas) it is expected to understand the phenomenon of femicide in its broadest dimension.

The Role of Legacy Media and Social Media in Increasing Public Engagement About Violence Against Women in Turkey

Evidence that women have paid the price of what has been labeled the “shadow pandemic” is found in the increase in violence against them. The rates of femicide and lack of trust in the Turkish judicial system of the authoritarian government are worrisome. Protests have been made in the streets and through social media in response. Our goal was to determine the role of legacy news media and social media in bringing awareness of the femicide issue to the public and how affective publics function surrounding a relatively unaddressed societal problem using datasets created by women’s organizations. We conducted a content analysis on 150 sampled femicide cases in Turkey before and during the pandemic taken from online news sources. We investigated the quality of traditional news media coverage and the volume of social media users expressing emotional reactions to individual femicides over time. Results suggest that the journalistic performance of covering the issue of femicide fails to detail essential facts, and awareness and concern for the issue are evident in the Likes, retweets, shares, and expressions of emotional engagement provided to the victims, while online reactions to femicide have increased substantially since 2019, contributing to the formation of affective publics. The study makes a conceptual contribution to the understanding of legacy media and social media’s roles in spurring public engagement about serious social problems in autocratic political contexts while advancing the methodological tools of combining social scientific techniques with computational ones.

Risk Factors for Intimate Partner Femicide-Suicide in Italy: An Ecological Approach.

The present study investigated the intimate partner femicide (IPF) and intimate partner femicide–suicide (IPFS) perpetrators’ individual, relational, and contextual characteristics by analyzing, within the ecological approach, femicide cases that occurred in Italy from 2010 to 2019. On the topic, to date, scant studies examined possible differences between IPF and IPFS risk factors, and no studies have analyzed these factors by adopting an ecological systems model perspective. To this aim, archival research was carried out. Of a total of 1.207 femicides, 409 were IPF, and 227 were IPFS. Perpetrators’ age, level of employment, law enforcement membership, mental and/or physical illnesses, use of psychoactive substances, previous crimes, previous violent relationships, presence of children, previous violence in the couple, inability to accept the end of the relationship, quarrels and conflict, jealousy and the psychophysical illnesses of both authors and victims, as well as the use of firearms and victim’s request for help were analyzed. The results underlined the existence of different risk factors contributing to the IPF perpetrators’ decision to commit suicide such as perpetrators’ age, law enforcement membership, and firearm availability. These findings stress the need for specific risk assessment and management strategies for IPFS perpetrators.

Reflecting on Legal Responses to Intimate Partner Femicide in Scotland.

This article considers legal responses to intimate partner femicide in Scotland. It reflects on how the plea of provocation on the basis of infidelity has been used, pointing to misrepresentation of the relationship between domestic abuse and stalking. From there, findings from 57 intimate partner femicide cases are presented. These findings indicate problematic stereotypes in how intimate partner femicide cases are reported and the operation of the "love narrative" in sentencing. It is concluded that more must be done to label intimate partner femicide cases appropriately and that improvements are achievable within the current criminal justice framework.

A Study of Femicide in Turkey From 2010 to 2017

This paper presents a Turkey-wide analysis of 1,000 femicide cases, collected from 100 newspapers between 2010 and 2017. The study seeks to contribute to the international femicide literature by highlighting the background and reasons for these murders, as characterized by the newspapers. The methodology involved frequency and chi-square analysis of the data retrieved from 100 newspapers collected from the homepage of kadincinayetleri.org. The study reveals that a woman’s intimate partner is the perpetrator in the highest number of femicide cases. The most common motives for femicides in international micro-level studies are (1) possessiveness and jealousy and (2) loss, separation, or divorce. The present study found these to be the first- and third-highest motives for femicide in Turkey. The motives of femicides can be interpreted in the macro-level analysis as women’s resistance to men’s domination; their demand for control over women escalates to murdering the woman as a form of backlash.