UN Special Rapporteur on violence against women Dubravka Šimonovic said Monday that a “pandemic of femicide and gender-based violence against women is taking the lives of women and girls everywhere.”

Her announcement comes two days prior to the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women. This day has been recognized since 1981, and it was officially adopted by the UN in February 2000 with resolution 54/598.

Šimonovic called on:

all States and relevant stakeholders worldwide to take urgent steps to prevent the pandemic of femicide or gender related killings of women, and gender-based violence against women, through the establishment of national multidisciplinary prevention bodies or Femicide watches/observatories on violence against women. These bodies should be mandated to 1) collect comparable and disaggregated data on femicide or gender-related killings of women; 2) conduct an analysis of femicide cases to determine shortcomings, and recommend measures for the prevention of such cases, and 3) ensure that femicide victims are not forgotten by holding days of remembrance.

Furthermore, she stated that data on this topic has been collected since 2015 by Femicide Watch, and it shows that more than 80 percent of victims of intentional killings involving intimate partners are women.

In April the UN released a study showing that gender-related violence has increased while access to family planning has decreased during the COVID-19 shutdown. Both the UN and the World Health Organization have expressed that shutdowns are expected to set back their efforts to end gender-based violence such as child marriages, domestic violence and female genital mutilation.