Spain says it is first in Europe to officially count all femicides

Official statistics on gender-based violence in Spain will be broadened to include killings of women and children by men regardless of whether there was a prior relationship between victim and killer, in what is being described as a first in Europe.

Since 2003 Spain has logged killings as gender violence if there is evidence that the killer and the victim had been or were in a relationship. From Saturday 1 January the definition of gender violence will be broadened to include the murder of any woman or children in which gender is deemed to have played a role.

Statistics kept by the Spanish government show that since 2003 at least 1,125 women have been murdered by their partners or ex-partners, including at least 43 women in 2021.