More women were killed by their son than by a stranger. The vast majority of women were killed in their own home. Evidence of gratuitous violence was found in just over two-thirds of killings.

Key findings from the report include:

• Consistent with previous years, women killed by men are most likely to be killed by a current or former partner than any other man. Sixty-two (51 per cent) women killed by men in 2022 were killed by a current or former intimate partner. The average between 2009 and the end of 2021 is 60 per cent.
• Leaving an abusive man is no guarantee of women’s safety. The Femicide Census has consistently shown that separation is a risk factor for intimate partner femicides, or more accurately, a trigger for violent, abusive and/or controlling men At least 40 per cent of women killed by a current/former partner had left or were taking steps to leave him. Yet Women’s Aid regularly report that there are insufficient spaces in women’s refuges to meet need.
• A sharp instrument, such as a knife, was used in the killing of 65 women (53 per cent). This has consistently been the most common method men choose to kill women.
• Men used the brute force of their own bodies in the killings of 20 women (17 per cent) by kicking, hitting and stamping a woman to death.
• More women were killed by their sons than by strangers. Ten per cent of women killed by men were killed by their sons. Nine per cent were killed by strangers.

Clarrie O’Callaghan, co-founder of the Femicide Census said: “The state is able to solve most known femicides – nearly all perpetrators are caught – but what it does not seem able to do despite 14 years of our reporting on femicides, is prevent more women being killed. There are known and repeated state failures, known and repeated risks ignored as is so much learning from a multitude of sources that we should have the lowest rate of femicide in the world. It is nothing short of state-sanctioned weaponised incompetence.”

Karen Ingala Smith, co-founder of the Femicide Census said: “Men who are known to be a danger to women are too frequently at liberty to harm, rape and kill. The Labour Party, now in Government, has pledged to halve serious violence, including men’s violence against women, in ten years. They are going to have to act fast and ambitiously to even approach that target. Not only do they need to address how men who are known to be a danger are held to held to account and managed, how justice is served, how women and children who have been subjected to men’s violence are supported, they also need to look at how and why society creates a sex class of killers and rapists.”