Femicide and forensic pathology: Proposal for a shared medico-legal methodology

Negative consequences of conflict-related sexual violence on survivors: a systematic review of qualitative evidence

“…The findings of the present review confirm that CRSV takes place in an enabling environment, characterized by widespread use of sexual and general violence. Its extent opens us the possibility to make a correlation with the phenomenon of overkilling, that is, when the number or the severity of the wounds inflicted on the victim’s body goes beyond that of fatal injuries [ 40 , 77 ]. Here, the level of violence employed was beyond the one necessary to cause harm from a causal perspective with regards to contextual (e.g., war, instability, gender inequality) and human factors (perpetrators, family and community members, and providers), to the time span when it occurred (before, during, and in the aftermath of CRSV), and type of offenses sustained by victims (e.g., SV, other personal and property offenses, including physical violence), creating an interlinking chain of violence.…”

Femicide in the United States: a call for legal codification and national surveillance

“…To catalog and analyze femicides under the new proposed penal code, existing data structures also need to be updated. Of note, the dynamics of female homicides differ from male homicides ( 13 , 26 ), including that most female homicides take place in the private sphere ( 26 , 27 ). As such, contextual information about each homicide is critical.…”

“…Following guidance from the UN Office on Drugs and Crime on a statistical framework for measuring femicide ( 28 ) and research on male-perpetrated female homicides in Canada ( 23 ), we recommend that sex/gender-related motives/indicators (SGRMIs) be cataloged and assessed to ascertain whether the killing was a femicide. SGRMIs are characteristics that indicate whether the homicide was “rooted in perpetrators' misogynistic attitudes” ( 23 ) and can include factors such as current or past intimate relationship with the perpetrator, familial relationship, perpetrator history of IPV, evidence of sexual violence accompanying the killing, victim experienced human trafficking or involvement in sex work, bodily mutilation and/or public exposure, and evidence of the killing being motivated by hatred of women ( 23 , 26 , 28 ). Accurate and timely collection of the following additional contextual data is necessary to determine the gender-related nature of the killing: gender identity and sexual orientation of the victim, pregnancy status of the victim, perpetrator's history of restraining orders, economic activity status of the victim and perpetrator, and gender-related motive for the killing ( 28 ).…”

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

“…2 The term has developed from the political movements and feminist teachings of the 1970s 3 to more recent approaches in sociology 4,5 and forensic medicine. 6,7 It is a definition which is continually evolving as studies into the deaths and killings of women are more widely published from around the world, the factors that constitute a femicide and/or female homicide can frequently differ from country to country and region to region and it is this that can make comparing deaths and calculating figures difficult. 8 There are important and timely conversations taking place not just in academic settings but within the wider public arena on issues such as consent, sex, sexual and physical violence against women and femicide.…”

“…A proposed definition based on medical ethics has been put forward by Cecchi and Colleagues 6 as the ‘ murder perpetrated because of a failure to recognize the victim's right of self-determination’ , which must reflect the motive for the crime, thus giving the forensic pathologist a crucial role in establishing cases based on injuries sustained, sites of injuries and causes of death when compared to other homicides. 6,7…”