The Alarming Rate of Black Femicide

Researchers at Columbia University found that Black women in the United States face a much higher risk of femicide. In fact, Black women are six times more likely to be murdered than white women. Researchers from Columbia University Irving Medical Center and Columbia Mailman School of Public Health conducted the analysis. Their findings highlight a persistent pattern of racial inequality. They emphasize the urgent need to address violence against Black women.

The landmark Columbia study was the first to analyze homicide trends spanning two decades among women aged 25 to 44 — the ages at which women are most vulnerable to femicide.¹ It not only confirms the disproportionate impact of femicide on Black women but also highlights the alarming trend of Black women being more likely than white women to be killed by firearms.

“To uncover the fact that Black women are murdered at rates as high as 20 to 1 is heart-breaking and underscores the urgent need to make substantive structural shifts.”

Bernadine Waller, PhD, Columbia University Irving Medical Center

What is Femicide?

Femicide is the hate killing of women perpetrated by men — a term distinct from the broader word “homicide” precisely because the distinction matters.² It was popularized by Dr. Diana Russell in the 1970s to prevent the erasure that happens when gendered murders are described in neutral terms.³ Scholar Jill Radford further defined it as the misogynistic killing of women by men, arguing that naming the crime was the first step toward dismantling the culture that permits it.⁴

A woman is killed in an act of femicide when she is targeted because she is a woman, or because she has defied the patriarchal expectations of a current or former romantic partner or family member.⁵ Legal scholar Caroline Davidson describes this as “gendered killing”–a special category of violence requiring its own category of justice, since femicide is frequently the lethal end point of a continuum of intimate and familial violence known as coercive control.

U.S. Femicide Rates Per 100,000 Population for Women (1999-2020)

The study findings reveal stark disparities in femicide rates among Black women across different states. In Wisconsin, the disparity reached a staggering 20-to-1 ratio between 2019–2020, highlighting the urgency of addressing this issue at both the national and state levels.

FBI and CDC data reveal a disturbing and persistent trend: Black women are murdered at dramatically higher rates than white women. Approximately one-third of Black femicides are committed by intimate partners or family members, while another 16% involve friends or acquaintances.⁶

New Data: The Crisis Deepens (2023-2025)

Since the original publication of this article, new data has emerged confirming that the crisis has worsened, not improved.

• Gun homicide rates for Black women and girls rose 44% between 2019 and 2023: a dramatic escalation that postdates the original study’s data range. According to the Violence Policy Center’s 2025 annual report, Black women and girls were murdered by males at a rate of 3.1 per 100,000, two and a half times the rate of 1.2 per 100,000 for white women killed by men.⁷
• The overrepresentation of Black women in femicide data: Black women made up just 14% of the female U.S. population in 2023, yet accounted for 31.4% of all women killed by men–a representation gap that underscores the systemic nature of this violence.
• Increase in men’s violence against Black women and girls: The percentage of Black women killed by men with a firearm climbed from 51% in 2011 to 74.7% in 2023. In 2023, 86% of Black homicide victims overall were killed with firearms, compared to 70.1% of white victims. Black Americans accounted for nearly 60% of all firearm homicide victims nationally.⁸
• Victimization of Black women and girls remains unchanged: While the national homicide rate declined slightly to 5.9 per 100,000 in 2023 (down from 6.7 in 2022), this improvement has not translated equally for Black women, whose victimization rates remain persistently, disproportionately elevated.

Structural Racism A Key Factor in Black Femicide

Structural racism remains a central driver of these disparities. Historical legacies of slavery and lynching have contributed to concentrated disadvantage in certain parts of the country–areas characterized by high proportions of people experiencing low socioeconomic status, inadequate access to healthcare, under-resourced law enforcement, and systemic housing insecurity.

“Efforts aimed at reducing disproportionate homicide deaths among Black women can be implemented through addressing the role of structural racism.”

 Victoria A. Joseph, MPH, Columbia Mailman School of Public Health

Gun deaths among Black and white women in the U.S. have increased over time, with Black women disproportionately affected. In 2020, Black women were three times more likely in the Northeast and over six times more likely in the Midwest to be killed by a firearm compared to their white counterparts.

“”These trends reflect systems that have long disserviced communities of color.”

Katherine Keyes, PhD, Senior Author, Colombia University

Femicide is one of the leading causes of death in the United States for women under the age of 44, and nearly half are killed by a current or former male intimate partner. The COVID-19 pandemic accelerated an already-alarming trend–in its aftermath, femicide rates among Black women aged 25–44 increased by 73% between 2014 and 2020. Victims faced added pressures of economic insecurity, increased time in isolation with their abusers, and limited contact with support networks.

Advocacy group like The Black Femicide Prevention Coalition are striving to spread awareness about the epidemic.⁹

Federal Rollbacks Threaten Progress

Perhaps the most significant development since this article was first published is the 2025 federal funding crisis affecting domestic violence services across the United States.¹⁰ The rollback of critical funding programs has placed the most vulnerable populations–including Black women–at even greater risk.¹¹

The Trump administration’s Office of Management and Budget targeted over 2,600 programs for funding review, including the Department of Justice’s Office on Violence Against Women and the Department of Health and Human Services’ Family Violence Prevention Team.¹²

The president’s proposed budget for fiscal year 2026 would cut Violence Against Women Act programs within the DOJ by over $200 million, reducing funding to $505 million. The Division of Violence Prevention within the CDC–which housed most programs financing domestic violence prevention research–has been gutted through layoffs and additional cuts.

Between 2021 and 2025, the Office on Violence Against Women distributed $2.2 billion to support crisis hotlines, mental health counseling, and survivor housing. Some domestic violence organizations warn that without federal funds, they will cease to exist entirely.

Under new federal guidance, organizations can no longer use federal funds to describe domestic violence as a systemic issue. Programs that frame abuse through the lens of inequality, identity, or structural harm are now potentially disqualified from funding. Organizations serving Black women navigating domestic violence alongside housing discrimination must now “write around” their own mission to remain eligible.

Black women are disproportionately represented among people experiencing homelessness due to systemic barriers such as employment discrimination and pay gaps. Domestic violence only deepens this housing insecurity. Seventeen state coalitions have sued the administration over these restrictions, and courts have issued preliminary injunctions blocking some of the most restrictive conditions–though the legal situation remains fluid as of 2026.

What’s at Stake

• Crisis hotlines and emergency shelter for Black women fleeing intimate partner violence
• Mental health counseling and trauma recovery programs
• Legal advocacy and court accompaniment services
• Community-based prevention programs in underserved neighborhoods
• Research funding tracking the very statistics cited in this article

Legal and Advocacy Resistance to State Sanctioned Female Subjugation

The legal and advocacy pushback has been swift, broad, and–in at least one key case–successful. In June 2025, the National Women’s Law Center filed a lawsuit on behalf of 17 state domestic violence and sexual assault organizations, seeking to stop the Trump administration from imposing unlawful restrictions on grants issued by the Department of Justice’s Office on Violence Against Women.¹³

The new conditions required organizations to certify they were not promoting “gender ideology” or diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs–effectively barring them from describing family- and intimate partner violence as a systemic issue or serving undocumented immigrants, even where federal law required them to do so.

“The president lied in his promise to protect women, and is now threatening to block funding for our clients who actually protect women every day–so we are taking this administration to court.”

Gaylynn Burroughs, Vice President of Education and Workplace Justice at NWLC 

The Vera Institute of Justice filed a separate class action lawsuit after the DOJ abruptly terminated roughly $820 million in grants that funded more than 200 organizations across 37 states, with organizations receiving identical form letters stating their work “no longer effectuates the program goals or agency priorities.”¹⁴

A coalition of 22 attorneys general, led by New York Attorney General Letitia James, filed an amicus brief arguing the new DOJ requirements would endanger vulnerable people and contradict Congress’ own updates to VAWA, which explicitly prohibit discrimination in its programs.¹⁵

The courts have begun to respond: on August 8, 2025, the U.S. District Court of Rhode Island granted a preliminary injunction blocking the administration’s unlawful restrictions on VAWA grants.¹⁶ The Colorado Coalition Against Sexual Assault warned that without federal funds, vital services for victims of sexual assault and domestic violence will cease to exist in their state entirely–a warning echoed by organizations in nearly every state in the coalition.

Advocacy groups continue to spread awareness about the epidemic and push for structural solutions. The Black Femicide Prevention Coalition remains at the forefront of this work, documenting cases, supporting survivors’ families, and pressuring legislators to act.

The Global Picture: Femicide as a World Crisis

The United States does not stand alone in confronting this crisis. In 2025, UN Women and the UNODC released their first comprehensive global estimate of femicide, placing the scale of the problem in stark relief.

An estimated 85,000 women and girls were killed intentionally worldwide in 2023.¹⁷ Of those homicides, 60%– approximately 51,100–were committed by an intimate partner or family member.¹⁸ That equates to 140 women and girls killed by someone they knew, every single day.

Many of these gender-based murders remain hidden behind the veil of the term homicide as only 28 countries have femicide legislation and the United States is not among them.

This global data reinforces a hard truth: femicide is not a problem unique to the United States, but the racial dimensions of homicide victimization in the U.S. reflect a specifically American failure to protect Black women and girls.

Advocacy and Community Response

Advocacy groups continue to spread awareness about the epidemic and push for structural solutions. The Black Femicide Prevention Coalition remains at the forefront of this work, documenting cases, supporting survivors’ families, and pressuring legislators to act.

Community organizations are also responding to the federal funding crisis by building alternative funding pipelines through private philanthropy, state budgets, and mutual aid networks. However, advocates warn that private funding cannot fully replace the scale and consistency of federal investment.

To learn how the lack of legal protections impacts victims, read Femicide in Malaysia: Why We Must Name It.

Summary

On May 22, 1962, Malcolm X addressed the intersectional injustices Black women face in America. He emphasized the vulnerability and marginalization Black women face, from oppression in broader society and within their own communities.¹⁹

“The most disrespected person in America is the Black woman. The most unprotected person in America is the Black woman. The most neglected person in America is the Black woman.”

Malcolm X, May 22, 1962

More than 60 years later, the urgency of his message has only grown more acute. Gun homicide rates among Black women rose 44% in just four years. Federal protections are being systematically dismantled. Research funding is being cut. And the organizations that serve Black survivors are being forced to fight for their own existence.

The alarming rate of Black femicide in the United States is not an inevitability — it is the product of policy choices, structural inequalities, and a persistent failure to treat Black women’s lives as worth protecting. Only through concerted efforts to address structural racism, restore and expand funding for domestic violence services, and invest in underserved communities can we hope to reverse this trajectory.

Further Reading

• National Femicide Rates in the United States
• Black Femicide Trends 2020-2025: The Impact of COVID-19
• Black Femicide: Perpetrator Relationship Data
• Black Femicide: State-by-State Disparities
• Global Femicide Crisis: A Woman Is Killed Every 10 Minutes
• The Femicide of Rebecca Cheptegei: Coercive Control in Sports
• Coercive Control Legislation Global Index
• The Global Femicide Legislation Index

References

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Manya Wakefield

Website |  + postsBio ⮌

Manya Wakefield is a narcissistic abuse recovery coach, coercive trauma specialist, and the developer of the Coercive Trauma Recovery Method™ and TENEL™ (Traumatic Exposure to Narcissism in Early Life) — proprietary recovery frameworks built from seven years of direct professional work with survivors of coercive control, narcissistic abuse, and Adult Children of Narcissists. Both frameworks have been reviewed by Dr. Michael Kinsey, PhD, clinical psychologist, New School for Social Research. She is the founder of Narcissistic Abuse Rehab, a global social impact platform launched in 2019 to support survivors through evidence-based recovery frameworks. Manya is the author of Are You In An Emotionally Abusive Relationship (2019), a resource used in domestic violence recovery groups worldwide. Her original research contributions include the Global Coercive Control Legislation Index (2020) — the first systematic index of its kind on the web — and the Global Femicide Legislation Index (2026), comprehensive legal references used by advocates, legal professionals, and policymakers internationally, cited in peer-reviewed publications including the Southern Illinois University Law Journal, Palgrave Macmillan, and the University of Agder. Her expertise has been featured in Newsweek, Elle, Cosmopolitan, HuffPost, Parade, and YourTango. She hosts the Narcissistic Abuse Rehab Podcast, available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and Amazon Music. All content on this site reflects Manya's direct professional experience working with survivors of narcissistic abuse and coercive control, her published research, and her ongoing advocacy work.

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