More than half of the women murdered by their partners or ex-partners had minors in their care

In 2023, gender violence ended the lives of 58 women, all of them murdered by those who were or had been their partners. This figure, the worst since 2015, far exceeds that recorded a year earlier and yields an annual average of 59.2 crimes per year - one every 6.2 days - in the historical series from 2003 to 2023. Just over half of these women were of Spanish nationality (55.2%) and were mothers of minor children (47.2%); one in four (25.9%) had filed a prior complaint against their aggressor and six in ten (60.3%) were still living with their aggressor.

These and other data are collected in the Report on fatal victims of gender and domestic violence in the context of the couple or ex-partner, which is prepared each year by the Observatory against Domestic and Gender Violence of the General Council of the Judiciary and which analyzes in detail, based on data held by the judicial bodies, the murders of women and their minor sons and daughters by gender violence within the context of the couple or ex-partner, as well as those by intimate domestic violence.

The comparative analysis between both criminal phenomena shows how 87.8% of the murders in the context of the couple or ex-partner were committed by men against women, while 10.3% were committed by men at the hands of women.

Despite the increase in sexist crimes in 2023, the study of the historical series reveals significant differences between the first period (2003-2012) and the second (2013-2022). The annual average in the first decade was 65.9 murders and in the second, 52.4. The same occurs with the frequency: in the first decade there was one case every 5.5 days and in the second, every 7 days.

The rate of femicides per million women over 15 years of age also decreased from the first to the second half of the historical series, from 3.42 to 2.59. In 2023, it stood at 2.75.

Characteristics of the victims

The analysis of the data extracted from the judicial files shows that gender violence is a criminal phenomenon characterized by diversity, as it affects all areas and origins equally: nationality, social class, age, level of education, ethnic group, etc. This information allows us to draw a profile of the victim, as well as of her aggressor, but not to draw the socio-economic circumstances and the way in which these could condition the relationship between them.

In 2023, the profile of the victim is that of a woman with an average age of 42.9 years, a mother, of Spanish nationality in just over half of the cases (55.2%), who lives with her aggressor (60.3%) and who maintains an affective relationship with him (70.7%), whether matrimonial or of another type, at the time the crime occurs. As in previous years, more than half of the victims (58.7%) were between 26 and 45 years old, although this age range represents less than a third of the population of women over 15 years old.

Of the total number of victims, 32 were Spanish (55.2%) and 26 (44.8%) came from seventeen other countries: 34.6% located in Africa; 26.9% in America; the same percentage in Europe and 11.5 percent in Asia.

One of the characteristics shared by half of the victims (55.2%) was their status as mothers of minor girls and boys; the percentage of victims who were mothers rises to 74.14% if children over the age of majority are also taken into account. Of the 58 minors who were orphaned last year, 37 (63.8%) were biological children of the aggressor. The other 21 were born during previous or subsequent relationships of the victims. The number of people who lost their mothers in 2023, regardless of their age, was 83.

Profile of the aggressor

The aggressor is a Spanish male in 55.2% of the cases, with an average age of 47.3 years (more than 4 years older than the victims).

Only 12.1% of the perpetrators surrendered after committing the crime. The majority (56.9%) were arrested and 24.1% committed suicide. Regarding the latter, the report reveals that most of them (57.1%) had a marital bond with the victim, an average age of 55.3 years and Spanish nationality in seven out of ten cases (71.4%).

Circumstances of the aggression

Once again, the home, whether shared or belonging to one of the members of the couple or ex-partner, was the place where eight out of ten (77.8%) femicides were recorded. In much lower percentages, other scenarios were the workplace (7%), a hotel (6%) or the public highway (5%).

The method used in 51.8% of the cases was a knife, followed by a firearm (19.6%), asphyxiation or strangulation (15%) and blows (10.7%), among others. In the historical series, 64.6% of the femicides committed with a firearm ended with the suicide of the aggressor.

In 2023 there was a striking concentration of cases (25 of the 58) in summer: 10.6% in June; 14.9% in July; 17% in August and 21.3 percent in September. Sunday was the day of the week with the highest concentration of femicides, with 36.2% of the cases.

Prior complaints

One in four murdered women (25.9%) had filed a prior complaint against their aggressors, which represents 15 of the 58 victims. Of these, five were still living with their aggressor.

The percentage is notably lower than that recorded in 2022, when nearly half of the murdered women (40.8%) had reported the situation of violence in which they lived. The analysis of the time series of cases with prior complaints shows important oscillations ranging from 12.3% in 2005 to 40.8% in 2022.

Prior complaints

One in four murdered women (25.9%) had filed a prior complaint against their aggressors, which represents 15 of the 58 victims.

Of these, five were still living with their aggressor. The percentage is notably lower than that recorded in 2022, when nearly half of the murdered women (40.8%) had reported the situation of violence in which they lived. The analysis of the time series of cases with prior complaints shows important oscillations ranging from 12.3% in 2005 to 40.8% in 2022.

The average age of the victims who previously reported their aggressor in 2023 was 39.1 years, lower than the average age of the 58 victims of that year, which was 42.9 years.

Most of the complaints were filed by women between 36 and 45 years old (36.8%). The report reveals that the victims who reported their aggressors belonged to all age groups up to 65 years old; women over 65 years old did not do so in any case, despite the fact that 8.6% of the murdered women belonged to this age group.

By nationality, the percentage of foreign fatal victims who reported their aggressor is higher than that of Spanish victims. Among the latter, 15.6% had filed a complaint, while in the group of victims from other countries that percentage was 38.5%.

In three of the 58 cases analyzed in the report, there was a restraining order in force and the murder was committed, respectively, in the victim's workplace, on a beach and inside a hotel. In two other cases, there had been measures in the past, but at the time of the events they were canceled.

In 2023 there were two cases in which the aggression extended to two people close to the woman, who were also murdered. In both cases they are minor daughters of the victims, aged 5 and 8 years. In the historical series there have been 64 cases of multiple homicide with a total of 76 victims, of which 39 were minor sons/daughters of the victims.