Femicide has increased rapidly among black women particularly in London, figures suggest.
Hate crime also known as femicide means systematically killing women, girls or females as a result of their gender.
The figures obtained by the PA news agency from the Metropolitan Police in a Freedom of Information request show that:
“Of the 21 femicide victims recorded by the Metropolitan Police in 2022, nine (43%) were black while eight of the 13 victims in 2023 (62%) were black.
“These figures suggest black women are being disproportionately targeted when compared with the ethnic breakdown of the female population of London, where just 14% are black”, according to the 2021 census.
“By contrast, four of the 21 victims in 2022 were white, along with one of the 13 victims in 2013, while white women make up over half (53%) of London’s female population.
“The pattern was different in 2021, however, with 25 femicide victims recorded by the Met, of whom 20 (80%) were white and three (12%) were black”.
Met Police data also shows that sharp instruments were the most common method for killing the victims, being used in 13 of the 25 femicides recorded in 2021, 16 of the 21 in 2022 and seven of the 13 in 2023.
Southall Black Sisters, an organisation dedicated to assisting society’s most marginalised victims of abuse, said while the findings are “really shocking,” it sadly does not come as a surprise that there’s a disproportionate impact on black women.
The group’s Selma Taha sad: “Why is the value of black women’s lives so obsolete, they’re facing a crisis… we need politicians and the police to step up.”
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