Content warning: this article contains graphic descriptions of gender-based violence.

Hours before the G20 summit kicked off in Johannesburg in November, hundreds of South African women wearing black lay down in a city park for 15 minutes – one minute for each woman who loses her life every day due to gender-based violence (GBV) in South Africa. The protest was organised by the civil society organisation Women for Change, which gathered over a million signatures to demand the government declare GBV a national disaster. Hours later, the government acquiesced.

It was a vital victory in a year marked by brutal violence and political backlash. In Argentina, mass protests erupted in September following the torture and killing of three young women by a drug-trafficking gang, livestreamed to an exclusive audience in a private social media group. In Brazil, tens of thousands took to the streets in December after Taynara Souza Santos was run over by her ex-boyfriend and dragged across concrete for a kilometre, resulting in loss of her legs.

These highly visible cases were the tip of the iceberg. Civil society has long campaigned for authorities to identify femicide as a specific crime, defined as the killing of women or girls because of their gender, with causes and consequences that set it apart from other forms of lethal violence. Civil society urges states to keep statistics, enabling femicide to be tracked, quantified and prevented.

Where data exists, it points to an epidemic. Numbers are highest in Africa and Latin America, although there’s widespread under-reporting, particularly in countries that don’t recognise femicide as a distinct crime, as well as inconsistent definitions. Available data indicates Africa has the highest femicide rate, of three per 100,000 women in 2024, and South Africa has one of the worst rates of all – with homicides with female victims at 12.2 per 100,000 women in 2022, and intimate partner and family-related homicides at 5.5 between 2020 and 2021, almost five times the global average. Hundreds of femicides have been documented in Kenya and Nigeria, although both countries lack comprehensive official tracking systems, and it falls on civil society to create databases from media reports.

Latin America offers an equally grim story. In 2024, at least 3,814 women were victims of femicides, translating into around 11 gender-related killings per day, according to data compiled by the Gender Equality Observatory of the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean. Honduras has the highest rate at 4.3 cases per 100,000 women, followed by Guatemala and the Dominican Republic. Brazil has the highest absolute number of cases, followed by Mexico.

These figures, which repeat year after year with little sign of improvement, provided the backdrop for this year’s global mobilisations against GBV. The 16 days of activism against gender-based violence campaign, held annually since 1991, again brought activists, civil society organisations and survivors to the streets and into virtual spaces from 25 November, International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women, to 10 December, Human Rights Day.

The campaign’s endpoint is symbolic: the choice of Human Rights Day, established to commemorate the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, highlights that violence against women isn’t merely a social problem but a violation of human rights. Activists assert that women’s rights are human rights and demand states fulfil their obligations under international law to prevent, investigate and punish GBV.

Year-long mobilisation

Throughout 2025, women mobilised repeatedly in response to sustained patterns of violence and specific femicide cases. International Women’s Day on 8 March brought massive mobilisations to protest against multiple forms of discrimination and violence against women and demand state action to eliminate gender gaps.

Italy saw nationwide protests triggered by a series of brutal murders. On 3 April, the killings of two 22-year-old students sparked protests and student vigils across multiple cities. On 29 May, demonstrations erupted in Naples following the discovery of the body of 14-year-old Martina Carbonaro, killed by an older boy whose advances she rejected.

On 3 June, Argentina marked the 10th anniversary of Ni Una Menos (‘Not one woman less’), a grassroots movement against femicides that began in 2015 and has since spread across Latin America and beyond, with nationwide demonstrations denouncing cuts to gender programmes imposed by the right-wing government of President Javier Milei. The government has eliminated the Ministry of Women, Genders and Diversity and announced plans to remove the crime of femicide from the penal code and repeal gender parity in electoral lists, labour quotas for sexual minorities, non-binary identity documents and a law that mandates gender-sensitive training for public employees. Feminist movements responded with sustained street protests and social media campaigns, defending hard-won protections while continuing to demand more effective responses to GBV. The year’s most powerful mobilisation came on 27 September in response to the livestreamed femicides.

Brazil saw tens of thousands march across the country in December in protest against record-high rates of femicide following several shocking cases. On top of the brutal assault on Souza Santos, protesters mourned teacher Catarina Kasten, raped and strangled to death on a trail next to a beach on 21 November, and an unnamed school administrator killed on 28 November by a male colleague who didn’t accept having female bosses. Protesters carried signs reading ‘Stop killing us’ and called for men to join women in their struggle.

In Turkey, which abandoned the Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence – known as the Istanbul Convention – in 2021, protests erupted in October, demanding justice over the suspicious death of 21-year-old university student Rojin Kabaiş. This happened against the backdrop of the right-wing nationalist government’s declaration of 2025 as the ‘Year of the Family’, criticised by activists for reinforcing traditional roles rather than addressing women’s safety.

South African women strategically leveraged the international spotlight of the G20 summit to stage the G20 Women’s Shutdown on 21 November. As world leaders converged on Johannesburg, Women for Change organised a nationwide action calling on women and LGBTQI+ people to withdraw from all paid and unpaid labour and not spend any money, symbolising the economic and social impact of their absence, and wear black in mourning and resistance. At noon, thousands gathered at meeting points across the country to observe 15 minutes of silence, lying on the ground. The purple-themed online campaign went viral across social media, with landmarks illuminated in the colour, successfully forcing the crisis onto the global agenda at a time of unprecedented international attention.

Online violence the new frontier

This year’s United Nations (UN) campaign theme was ‘UNiTE to End Digital Violence against All Women and Girls’, reflecting recognition of a rapidly growing form of GBV. The campaign focused on technology-facilitated violence, highlighting growing problems including online harassment, doxxing, non-consensual intimate image sharing and the use of deepfakes and other AI-generated content to control and silence women and girls. It called for governments to pass laws criminalising digital violence, demanded tech companies ensure platform safety and urged increased funding for prevention and survivor support services.

National mobilisations during the 16 Days broadened this global agenda, protesting against inadequate state protection, physical violence, systemic impunity and the role of technology in enabling and amplifying GBV.

Women marched across Latin America, including in Argentina, Chile, Guatemala, Mexico and Uruguay. In Mexico, hundreds mobilised to demand justice for victims, protection for feminist activists who are often criminalised and abortion rights as part of the recognition of women’s full bodily autonomy. Some held crosses in memory of murdered women, while others carried photos of men they accuse of violence who haven’t been prosecuted.

Europe was also home to numerous marches. In France, 50,000 took part in one protest in Paris. The feminist collective NousToutes (‘All of us women’) held a torchlit protest outside the Panthéon with a 20-metre banner listing names of 1,180 women killed since 2017. Activists demanded a comprehensive law backed by a substantial budget to implement prevention and support services.

Spain saw over 40 marches in multiple cities pay tribute to 38 women victims of femicides so far in 2025. Protesters rejected the far-right Vox party’s hostility towards women’s rights and demanded implementation of the State Pact against GBV, which includes hundreds of measures aimed at protecting minors from vicarious violence, combating economic and online violence and fighting sexual violence and trafficking.

In Turkey, thousands rallied in Istanbul despite authorities imposing sweeping bans, suspending metro services, closing major protest sites and erecting police barricades. According to the We Will Stop Femicide Platform, at least 235 women were killed by men in Turkey between January and October, with a further 247 found dead in suspicious circumstances. Women chanted the names of victims as they marched.

Progress amid regression

The year brought some progress, but it came within a wider context of regression, with right-wing governments framing anti-GBV measures as ideological and moving to roll back decades of feminist victories. This meant feminist organisations and women’s rights defenders have been forced to navigate increasingly hostile environments.

In Kenya, authorities weaponised sexual violence against women participating in Generation Z-led protests demanding government accountability. On 25 June, when people gathered to mark one year since the start of protests, shadowy armed groups gang-raped at least 14 women. The Federation of Women Lawyers in Kenya condemned the attacks as attempts to intimidate women and discourage them from political participation.

A political setback came in Latvia, where parliament voted to withdraw from the Istanbul Convention less than a year after ratifying it. Right-wing parties argued the treaty promoted ‘gender theories’ under the guise of combating violence. The vote proceeded despite a petition in support of the convention that gathered over 60,000 signatures. President Edgars Rinkēvičs sent the law back to parliament for further review. If the law passes, Latvia will be the first European Union (EU) member state to quit the convention.

Yet against this backdrop, civil society efforts brought some significant victories. Spain became a EU pioneer in criminalising vicarious violence, defined as violence perpetrated against women through intermediaries, typically children or family members. Its new law, passed on 30 September, followed in the footsteps of Mexico, which recognised this form of abuse in 2023.

On 25 November, marking International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women, Italy’s parliament unanimously approved a law making femicide a distinct criminal offence punishable by life imprisonment. The law defines femicide as acts intended to cause the death of a woman based on discrimination, hatred or violence.

Italy is the fourth EU country to codify femicide as a crime. The achievement is all the more significant given recent history: until 1981, the Italian penal code provided leniency for ‘honour killings’, with the Supreme Court only ruling out this as a mitigating factor in 2007. However, Italy remains one of a few EU states where sex and relationship education isn’t compulsory in schools, and a new law proposed by the right-wing government would ban sexual and emotional education in primary school and require explicit parental consent for lessons in high school.

At the European level, the EU’s first-ever directive on combating violence against women and domestic violence, adopted in May 2024, came into force in 2025. This means all 27 EU states must transpose it into national legislation by June 2027. The directive criminalises female genital mutilation, forced marriage, non-consensual sharing of intimate images, cyber stalking, cyber harassment and incitement to hatred and violence based on gender, with prison sentences ranging from one to five years. It requires comprehensive measures for prevention, protection, support for victims and access to justice, including awareness programmes about consent in sexual relationships. It makes it easier for victims to report crimes, with cybercrimes reportable online, protects children who report crimes committed by someone with parental responsibility and stipulates that evidence relating to victims’ past sexual conduct should only be permitted when relevant and necessary.

The UN Special Rapporteur on violence against women, Reem Alsalem, welcomed this historic legislation but expressed disappointment that member states blocked the inclusion of a consent-based definition of rape. Alsalem also pointed out that the directive distinguishes between online violence in private and public domains, criminalising only the public dimension, which could encourage perpetrators to operate in private online groups with impunity. Additionally, the directive doesn’t require states to provide adequate funding for implementation.

Structural changes needed

Collective action is essential to force change. When women take to the streets, their demands are for the most basic of human dignities: the ability to walk home without fear, leave abusive partners, participate in politics without risking sexual violence, exist online without harassment and access justice. These aren’t radical demands; they’re the minimum requirements for women to live as full human beings.

Yet meeting these basic demands requires structural transformation. Women will only find safety when societies cease to view them as objects to possess and control, when those seeking to escape abuse have a path to economic independence, when judicial systems treat violence against women with the seriousness it deserves and when technology companies are held accountable for platforms that enable harassment. This transformation demands sustained investment in prevention education, support services, specialised judicial training and accountability mechanisms.

This year there’s been more regression than progress. While Italy, South Africa and Spain took steps forward, elsewhere governments have continued dismantling protections, framing anti-violence measures as ‘gender ideology’ rather than human rights imperatives and obstructing feminist organising and protests.

But amid growing repression and dwindling resources, women’s movements persist in documenting violence, supporting survivors and demanding systemic change. States have human rights obligations to protect women’s lives, and women’s movements will continue to insist these obligations are met with the seriousness and resources they demand.

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