AROUND nine in 10 women murdered in Ireland are killed by people they know, according to the latest research.
Women's Aid released the report, 'A Legacy of Loss - Femicide Watch 2019,' on Friday, and among a number of significant findings, it showed that 87% of murdered Irish women knew their killer.
According to the report, 230 women have died violently between 1996-2019, five of which occurred within the last year.
The report centres around the notion of 'Femicide', loosely defined as when women or girls are murdered at the hands of men.
141 (61%) of those woman have died in their own homes, meaning that women are more likely to be killed in their homes than any other location, while it's deemed that just over 1 in 2 (56%) femicide victims are killed by a current or former intimate male partner.
According to Women's Aid, this "fits a global pattern and is in stark contrast to male homicide victims, the majority of whom are killed by strangers".
The study also found that in almost every single case of murder-suicide (21 out of 22), the killer was the woman's partner, while in the 20 cases where a woman had been killed by a male relative, 16 were killed by their sons.
While victims of femicide can be of any age, over half (51%) of woman killed in Ireland are under the age of 35, according to statistics.
"While reiterating that one death is one too many, it is important to note that the numbers of women murdered appear to be reducing - certainly in the last decade compared to the decade prior to that," said Women's Aid CEO Sarah Benson.
"We may not have a clear way to definitively determine causal factors, but it is important to reflect on what might we already be doing better now that we were 20 years ago?
"What can we take encouragement from? What can we build on? In recent years we have opened up the public discussion about domestic abuse, which I hope has reduced the serious stigma victim survivors feel, and encouraged more to seek support and speak out."
To see the full report, click here.
