Amid a near-total absence of official data, Egyptian gender rights group Tadwein has launched the country’s first AI-powered femicide tracking platform, “FemiMap,” which documented 308 murders and suicides of women and girls between January 2023 and December 2024 alone.
The findings, detailed in the study titled “They Were Killed Because They Were Women,” underscore a legal and political vacuum in addressing gender-based violence.
According to the World Health Organization, femicide is defined as the intentional killing of women and girls because of their gender. The UN Women similarly identifies it as gender-related killing by intimate partners or relatives.
Tadwein director Amal Fahmy said FemiMap was created to address the significant documentation gap in Egypt’s record of femicide. “We are constrained structurally—by political pressure, funding limitations, and the complete lack of national data on the murder of women,” she told reporters at Tuesday’s launch.
“Global estimates indicate that around 50,000 women are killed annually by intimate partners or family members, yet Egypt provides no accurate national statistics,” Fahmy added. She emphasized that Egypt’s legal system fails to recognize the term “femicide,” and some penal code provisions actively reduce punishment.
Article 17 of Egypt’s penal code allows judges to reduce sentencing by two degrees in specific cases, a loophole frequently applied in femicide trials. Article 7 exempts acts deemed committed “in good faith” as part of presumed marital rights, often cited in so-called honor killings. Article 274 criminalizes adultery only for married women, while granting men legal advantage in such cases.
Fahmy condemned prevailing societal norms that blame women rather than protect them. “We live in a culture that obsessively polices women's behavior and treats their choices as public scandals,” she said.
The UN Office on Drugs and Crime and UN Women released their own 2025 report in November for the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women, recording 83,000 femicides worldwide in 2024, with 60% committed by intimate partners or relatives.
Speaking to Al Manassa on the sidelines of the launch, Fahmy said FemiMap allows researchers and citizens alike to access real-time data. “No need to wait for a report, the map updates live, and it relies only on verified cases reported by at least two separate media sources,” she said.
Tadwein’s team trained the AI tool by first analyzing credible media outlets, holding dozens of workshops to identify keywords related to femicide, and programming the tool to discard unverifiable or sensationalized reports.
When asked whether the state was in denial about escalating violence against women, Fahmy replied, “I don’t think it’s denial. It’s official inaction. We've been trying for three years to push the unified anti-violence bill through parliament, and it’s been stalled every time.”
She pointed to the gap between Egypt’s political discourse and actual implementation. “The national strategies, Agenda 2030, and the constitution all speak of political will—but what we see on the ground is an execution gap, and we need to understand why.”
Egypt’s National Council for Women launched a National Strategy to Combat Violence Against Women in 2017, but critics argue that implementation remains minimal. Article 11 of Egypt’s Constitution mandates gender equality in all civil and social rights.
According to Fahmy, Tadwein’s next phase will expand the map to track legal outcomes of femicide cases. “We want the public to see how these cases fare in the justice system, and how existing laws often fail to protect women.”
Tadwein’s study found a year-on-year increase in femicides in 2024 compared to 2023. Giza recorded the highest number of killings and suicides (24.5%), followed by Cairo (18.8%). Nearly one in five victims were aged 21 to 30.
More than one-third of the murders involved stabbing or throat-slitting, while 21.5% died from beatings. In 55.4% of cases, the perpetrator was a current or former partner; over a quarter were family members.
The study relied entirely on media reports due to the lack of any official database, Tadwein researcher Ahmed Badr told Al Manassa. This lack of state-generated data not only obscures the full scale of the crisis but also reflects institutional apathy.
“There’s no unified definition of femicide in Egypt’s statistical agencies, and little public or governmental attention despite rising rates,” Badr said. “Family-related motives remain the leading cause of documented killings.”
The report found that 52.7% of women and girls were killed or died by suicide due to family disputes, while 12.1% were killed over alleged ‘honor’ or behavioral suspicions.
