feminismo

Femicide, defined as the gender-based murder of women, remains one of the most extreme forms of violence. In 2023, it is estimated that approximately 85,000 women and girls were murdered in the world and of these, 60% died at the hands of intimate partners or family members, which is equivalent to 140 victims per day in their immediate environment. According to the United Nations (UN), femicide occurs in a context of inequality, discrimination and asymmetrical power relations between men and women.

However, the above figures are an estimate, since obtaining data on this subject is not easy and involves a series of challenges. In this article we are going to comment on these challenges, and present examples and good practices of citizen associations that work to promote their quality and quantity.

Challenges in collecting data on femicides

The international comparison of femicide mainly faces two major issues: the absence of a common definition and the lack of standardization.

1. Absence of a common definition

There are important legal and conceptual differences between countries in terms of the definition of femicide. In Latin America, many countries have incorporated femicide as a specific crime, although with substantial variations in the legal criteria and in the breadth of the definition. In contrast, in Europe there is still no homogeneous definition of femicide, as underlined by the European Institute for Gender Equality (EIGE). In many cases, gender-based killings of women are recorded as general homicides or domestic violence, making the phenomenon invisible and making international comparison difficult.

This absence of a common legal and conceptual definition prevents direct comparison of figures as well as regional analysis.  In addition, the lack of methodological homogeneity causes femicide figures to be diluted among those of general homicides, underestimating the real magnitude of the problem and making it difficult to design effective public policies.

In this sense, an international effort is needed to standardize definitions. In this way, it will be possible to measure the true scope of the problem and combat it effectively.

2. Lack of standardization

The lack of standardization in data collection and publication generates profound differences in the availability, openness, and quality of information between countries. As in many other areas, open and standardized data on femicides could help to understand the phenomenon and facilitate the implementation of effective public policies. However, today there is disparity in data collection and publication.

Currently, the availability of data on femicide is uneven between countries. We find cases in which the data refer to different periods, or that present variations due to the different methodologies, definitions and sources:

• There are countries that offer data accessible through government platforms and/or official observatories. In these cases, the data come from public bodies such as ministries, national statistical institutes, gender-based violence observatories and supreme courts, which guarantees greater reliability and continuity in the publication of statistics, although their coverage and methodology vary widely.
• In other cases, the data are partial or come from non-governmental organizations (NGOs), independent observatories, journalistic and academic networks. These agencies usually resort to newspaper counts or media monitoring to complete institutional data. Multilateral organizations such as the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC),  UN Women and European data journalism networks try to harmonize and compare figures, although they recognize the limitations derived from the diversity of definitions and methodologies.

This lack of a unified system generates the need for a triangulation of information and produces discrepancies in the reported figures. In addition, it makes it difficult to obtain a more complete view of the phenomenon.

Therefore, standardization in data collection is necessary  to provide reliable and comparable data to know the real magnitude of the problem, evaluate the effectiveness of public policies or design effective prevention strategies.

To these challenges, we should add:

• Lack of technological infrastructure: disconnected judicial and police systems generate duplication or omissions.
• Irregular updates: very few publish quarterly data, essential for preventive policies.

Examples of citizen initiatives that collect data on femicide

In order to respond to global problems, citizen and academic initiatives have emerged that build alternative databases, making gender violence visible. To this end, feminist organizations and activists have adopted technological tools to track femicides.

One example is the Data Against Feminicide (DAF), which equips activists with email alert systems based on machine learning algorithms. The platform develops machine learning algorithms that help scan more than 50,000 daily news sources in multiple languages to identify potential cases of femicide, prioritizing activists' regions of interest and allowing them to add local sources. Unlike generic systems, DAF's approach is collaborative: participants train algorithms, review results, and correct biases, including identifying transfemicides or interpreting biased language in the media. Thus, technology does not replace human analysis, but reduces the workload and allows efforts to be focused on the verification and contextualization of cases.

Although transparency and open data are a first step, citizen projects such as those supported by the DAF operate with additional criteria that enrich the results:

1. Data with memory: each record includes name, personal history and community context.
2. Radical transparency: they use open-source methodologies and tools.
3. Restorative justice: data feeds advocacy campaigns and accompaniment to families.

The DAF also highlights the need to protect and care for the people who collect this data, given the emotional impact of their work. Thus, the human and ethical dimension of work is also made visible with data on femicide.

Another example is Feminicidio Uruguay, which has documented cases since 2001 through press monitoring and collaboration with the Coordinator of Feminisms. Their key findings include that  78% of the aggressors were known to the victim; that 42% of femicides occurred in the home, and that only  15% of the victims had made a previous complaint. This project inspired the creation of the National Registry of Femicides of the Argentine Justice, which since 2017 has published annual open data with details of victims, aggressors and context of the cases.

In addition to country initiatives, we also find supranational initiatives that seek to unify data in various regions. Initiatives such as the Regional Femicide Data Standard (ILDA) seek to overcome these barriers by:

• Unified collection protocols.
• Collaborative technical training platforms.
• Intergovernmental partnerships for legal validation.

The case of Spain

In view of this international situation, Spain is presented as a pioneering case in the field. Since 2022, all types of femicides have been officially counted, not only those committed by partners or ex-partners, but also family, sexual, social and vicarious ones. The main Spanish portal for statistical data on femicide is the statistical portal of the Government Delegation against Gender Violence, available on a dedicated website . This space brings together official data on femicides and gender-based violence, allowing information to be consulted, cross-referenced and downloaded in different formats, and is the institutional reference for the monitoring and analysis of these crimes in Spain. This new methodology responds to compliance with the Istanbul Convention and seeks to reflect the totality of extreme violence against women.

Collaboration with civil society and experts has been key to defining typologies and improving the quality and openness of the data. Citizen access is widespread, and data is disseminated in reports, datasets, and public bulletins.

Conclusion

In short, the opening and standardization of data on femicide are not only technical tools, but also acts of justice and collective memory. Where States work with civil society, data is more complete, transparent and useful for prevention and accountability. However, the persistence of gaps and disparate methodologies in many countries continue to hinder an effective global response to femicide. Overcoming these challenges requires strengthening international collaboration, adopting common standards, and ensuring the participation of those who document and accompany victims. Only in this way can data transform outrage into action and contribute to eradicating one of the most extreme forms of gender-based violence.

Content created by Miren Gutiérrez, PhD and researcher at the University of Deusto, expert in data activism, data justice, data literacy, and gender disinformation. The content and views expressed in this publication are the sole responsibility of the author.

Effective equality between men and women is a common goal to be achieved as a society. This is stated by the United Nations (UN), which includes "Achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls" as one of the Sustainable Development Goals to be achieved by 2030.

For this, it is essential to have quality data that show us the reality and the situations of risk and vulnerability that women face. This is the only way to design effective policies that are more equitable and informed, in areas such as violence against women or the fight to break glass ceilings. This has led to an increasing number of organisations opening up data related to gender inequality. However, according to the UN itself, less than half of the data needed to monitor gender inequality is currently available.

What data are needed?

In order to understand the real situation of women and girls in the world, it is necessary to systematically include a gender analysis in all stages of the production of statistics. This implies from using gender-sensitive concepts to broadening the sources of information in order to highlight phenomena that are currently not being measured.

Gender data does not only refer to sex-disaggregated data. Data also need to be based on concepts and definitions that adequately reflect the diversity of women and men, capturing all aspects of their lives and especially those areas that are most susceptible to inequalities. In addition, data collection methods need to take into account stereotypes and social and cultural factors that may induce gender bias in the data.

Resources for gender mainstreaming in data

From datos.gob.es we have already addressed this issue in other contents, providing some initial clues on the creation of datasets with a gender perspective, but more and more organisations are becoming involved in this area, producing materials that can help to alleviate this issue.

The UN Statistics Division produced the report “Integrating a Gender Perspective into Statistics” to provide the methodological and analytical information needed to improve the availability, quality and use of gender statistics.  The report focuses on 10 themes: education; work; poverty; environment; food security; power and decision-making; population, households and families; health; migration, displaced persons and refugees; and violence against women. For each theme, the report details the gender issues to be addressed, the data needed to address them, data sources to be considered, and specific conceptual and measurement issues. The report also discusses in a cross-cutting manner how to generate surveys, conduct data analysis or generate appropriate visualisations.

UN agencies are also working on this issue in their various areas of action. For example, Unicef has also developed guides of interest such as “Gender statistics and administrative data systems”, which compiles resources such as conceptual and strategic frameworks, practical tools and use cases, among others.

Another example is the World Bank. This organisation has a gender-sensitive data portal, where it offers indicators and statistics on various aspects such as health, education, violence or employment. The data can be downloaded in CSV or Excel, but it is also displayed through narratives and visualisations, which make it easier to understand. In addition, they can be accessed through an API.  This portal also includes a section where tools and guidelines are compiled to improve data collection, use and dissemination of gender statistics. These materials are focused on specific sectors, such as agri-food or domestic work. It also has a section on courses, where we can find, among others, training on how to communicate and use gender statistics.

Initiatives in Spain

If we focus on our country, we also find very interesting initiatives. We have already talked about GenderDataLab.org, a repository of open data with a gender perspective. Its website also includes guides on how to generate and share these datasets. If you want to know more about this project, we invite you to watch this interview with Thais Ruiz de Alda, founder and CEO of Digital Fems, one of the entities behind this initiative.

In addition, an increasing number of agencies are implementing mechanisms to publish gender-sensitive datasets. The Government of the Canary Islands has created the web tool “Canary Islands in perspective” to bring together different statistical sources and provide a scorecard with data disaggregated by sex, which is continuously updated. Another project worth mentioning is the “Women and Men in the Canary Islands” website, the result of a statistical operation designed by the Canary Islands Statistics Institute (ISTAC) in collaboration with the Canary Islands Institute for Equality. It compiles information from different statistical operations and analyses it from a gender perspective.

The Government of Catalonia has also included this issue in its Government Plan. In the report "Prioritisation of open data relating to gender inequality for the Government of Catalonia" they compile bibliography and local and international experiences that can serve as inspiration for both the publication and use of this type of datasets. The report also proposes a series of indicators to be taken into account and details some datasets that need to be opened up.

These are just a few examples that show the commitment of civil associations and public bodies in this area. A field we must continue to work in order to get the necessary data to be able to assess the real situation of women in the world and thus design political solutions that will enable a fairer world for all.

Today, 8 March is the day on which we commemorate women's struggle to achieve their full participation in society, as well as giving visibility to the current gender inequality and demanding global action for effective equality of rights in all areas.

However, the data seem to indicate that we still have some way to go in this respect. 70% of the 1.3 billion people living in poverty are women. Women predominate in global food production (up to 80% in some areas), but own less than 10% of the land. Eighty per cent of people displaced by disasters and climate-related changes worldwide are women and girls. And the situation for women has only worsened due to the pandemic, causing the estimate of the time needed to close the current gender gap to now grow to more than 135 years.

The importance of data in the fight for equality

It is therefore a fact that women have fallen behind on many of the sustainable development indicators, an inequality that is also being replicated in the digital world - and even amplified through the increasing use of algorithms that lack the necessary training data to be representative of women's reality. But it is also a fact that we do not even have all the data we need to know with certainty where we stand on a large number of key indicators.

There is a widespread shortage of gender data that cuts across all economic and social sectors. The World Bank, the European Union, the OECD, the United Nations, UNICEF, the ITU or the IMF - more and more international bodies are making their own particular efforts to compile their own gender databases. However, indicators are still lacking in many key areas, in addition to other important gaps in the quality of existing data that are often incomplete or outdated.

This lack of data is something that can be particularly problematic when it comes to such sensitive issues as gender-based violence - an area where we are fortunately seeing more and more data globally, including some great and encouraging examples such as the ILDA-led femicide data initiative. This is a very important step forward because it is even more difficult to improve when we don't even know what the current situation is. Data, and the governance policies we create to manage it, can also be sexist.

Data are tools for making better decisions and better policies. They allow us to set goals and measure our progress. Data has therefore become an indispensable tool for creating social impact in communities. This is why the lack of data on the lives of women and girls is so damaging.

Addressing the gender gap through data

In seeking solutions to this problem, and thus working for gender equality also through data, it is crucial that we involve the protagonists and give them a voice. In this way, through their own experiences, we can develop more inclusive processes for data collection, analysis and publication. We will then be in a much better position to use data as an inclusive tool to address gender equality. Catherine D'Ignazio and Lauren Klein's excellent Data Feminism Handbook provides a set of strategies and principles to guide us in doing this:

1. Examining power - Data feminism begins by looking at how power operates in the world.
2. Challenging power - We must commit to challenging power structures when they are unequal and working for equity.
3. Empowering emotions and embodiment - Data feminism teaches us to value multiple forms of knowledge, including that which comes from people.
4. Rethink binarisms and hierarchies - We must challenge gender binarism, as well as other systems of quantification and classification that could lead to various forms of marginalisation.
5. Embrace pluralism - The most complete knowledge emerges from synthesising multiple perspectives, prioritising local knowledge and experiences.
6. Consider context - Data are neither neutral nor objective. They are products of unequal social relations, and understanding that context will be essential to ethical and accurate analysis.
7. Make the work visible - The work of data science is the collaborative product of many people. All of this work must be made visible, so that it can be recognised and valued.

Nuestras opciones para contribuir a reducir la brecha de datos

In order to make progress in this fight for equality, we need much more gender-disaggregated data that adequately reflects the concerns of women and girls, their diversity and all aspects of their lives. We can and should all do our part in drawing attention to the disadvantages women face through data. Here are some tips:

• Start by always collecting and publishing data disaggregated by gender.
• Always use women as a reference group in our calculations when we are dealing with inequalities that affect them directly.
• Document the decisions we make and our methodologies in working with gender data, including any changes in our approaches over time and their justification.
• Always share raw and complete data in an open and reusable format. In this way, even if we have not focused on the challenges women face, at least others can do so using the same data.

Together we can make the invisible visible and finally ensure that every single woman and girl in the world is counted. The situation is urgent and now is the time to make a determined bid to close the data gap as a necessary tool to close the gender gap as well.

Content prepared by Carlos Iglesias, Open data Researcher and consultant, World Wide Web Foundation. The contents and views expressed in this publication are the sole responsibility of the author.

During 2018, a large number of acts and demonstrations that sought to promote gender equality have taken place. The feminist demonstrations of March 8 or the #metoo movement (which began at the end of 2017) highlighted the need to promote real equality in all society sectors.

Open data, just as it have contributed in other fields, such as health, tourism or entrepreneurship, can be a very useful tool to help achieve gender equality. But first it is necessary to overcome a series of challenges, such as:

• The existence of a gender gap in data: data disaggregated by sex allows us to understand if there are inequalities between people of different gender and make decisions that can help reduce those inequalities. However, there are still significant shortcomings in this type of data.
• Few women in open data ecosystem: As in other technological sectors, the number of women that participate in open data ecosystem is reduced. This means that their vision and concens are sometimes left out of the debate table. As an example, The Feminist Open Government Initiative was created to encourage governments and civil society to defend gender advances in a context of open government, but it is mainly managed by male members.

To solve these challenges, various groups of women have been created, such as Open Heroine, composed of more than 400 women worldwide working in the fields of open government, open data and civic technology. It is a virtual space where women can share their experiences and reflect on the challenges they face, as well as promote a higher presence of women in the open data discussion groups. This association was responsible for one of the pre-events held within the framework of the last International Open Data Conference. Through a "do-a-thon" format, they created working groups to try to solve challenges such as the prevention of femicides or the gender gap in data from Buenos Aires city.

In Spain, there are also organizations trying to boost the presence of women in these fields, but from a general point of view. For example, the project "I want to be an engineer", from the University of Granada, seeks to boost the presence of women in careers related to STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics). For this, they visit secondary education centers, and an Engineering Fair and a summer campus are held. It should be pointed out that, although women represent 54% of the Spanish university population, they only are 10% in ICT careers, according to Ministry of Education data.

Another example is the "Women and open data" space of Barcelona Open Data Initiative. This space shows visualizations as the result of 3 events organized by Barcelona Open Data to explore open data sources and solve social challenges related to women: Data X Women, Wiki-Data-Thon and Women Poverty and Precariousness Index. These visualizations allow us to see gender differences in areas such as home care and street maps in big cities such as Barcelona. They also promote the creation of digital solutions that facilitate the respond to these differences.

Women are 50% of society and they should be represented in all areas. Although its presence is increasing in the open data community (as Aporta Meeting showed), there is still work to be done: we need more gender data and more spaces to analyze and try to solve the women challenges using open data.