Silently Silenced: State-Sanctioned Killing of Women

Silently Silenced: State-Sanctioned Killing of Women examines States’ involvement in ‘feminicide’. Feminicide is understood as the gender-motivated killing of women and girls that States actively engage in, condone, excuse, or fail to prevent. We use the term ‘feminicide’ to refer to the various forms of State-sanctioned killing of women and girls. In this report, we outline States’ direct involvement and complicity in the killings of women and girls and explain these deaths as a product of gendered forms of structural violence upheld and sustained by the State. We examine 3 types of feminicide: gender- related killings of women directly perpetrated by the State, such as the death penalty and extrajudicial killings; gender-related killings of women committed by non-State actors that are excused or condoned by the State; and gender-related killings of women that the State failed to prevent.