As the 16 Days of Activism Against Gender-Based Violence come to a close and we commemorate Human Rights Day, we are reminded that across Asia and the Pacific, countless women and girls remain invisible – even in death. 

Understanding where, when and how women and girls die is fundamental to designing policies that protect lives.  Universal and robust civil registration systems enable governments to identify patterns in female mortality - from preventable maternal deaths and non-communicable diseases to gender-based violence - and to act accordingly.  Without data, harmful practices go undetected, health inequities deepen and gender-related killings remain hidden. 

However, the systems needed to bring these issues to light remain incomplete and fragmented. Across Asia and the Pacific, an estimated 6.9 million deaths go unregistered every year, and women account for a disproportionate share of those missing from official records. Social norms, entrenched gendered power structures, and limited incentives to register a woman’s death, all contribute to this gap.

Women are more likely than men to die at home, in rural areas or outside health facilities; settings where registration is least likely. Families often have little incentive to register a woman’s death, particularly where women own fewer assets, do not hold land rights or are excluded from household documents. This invisibility is compounded when a death occurs under violent or suspicious circumstances and legal responsibilities for investigation are unclear.

Nowhere is this more acute than in the Pacific, where rates of gender-based violence are among the highest in the world, and the deaths of women and girls often remain underreported, un-investigated and absent from official data systems.

Registering a death is only the beginning. Without accurate and complete information about how and why a person died, gender-related motivations remain hidden. Many registered female deaths are certified with non-specific or vague causes, such as “unknown,” “natural,” or “accidental.” In some studies conducted in the Asia-Pacific region, autopsy reviews have shown that deaths originally classified as accidents or suicides were, in fact, linked to gender-based violence. Yet stigma, unclear legal frameworks and limited medico-legal capacity mean that many of these deaths are never formally investigated. 

In 2024, an estimated 17,700 women in Asia and the Pacific (including Western Asia) were killed by an intimate partner or family member – almost 50 women every day. These deaths, horrifying in scale, are only part of the story. Many gender-related killings, are not counted as femicide in official statistics due to current data collection standards in medicolegal death investigation and civil registration systems. This invisibility underscores the urgent need for femicide reporting standards in CRVS systems and stronger national data systems to accelerate progress toward eliminating violence against women and girls (SDG Target 5.2).

In the absence of femicide reporting standards in CRVS systems, tools such as the Statistical Framework for Measuring the Gender-Related Killing of Women and Girls, developed by UNODC and UN Women, offers national statistical systems a clear methodology to produce more consistent and comparable data on femicide using law enforcement and judiciary data sources. Several countries have begun testing elements of the framework, including Fiji and Mongolia who have completed a pilot study on the statistical framework.  

As a critical first step to address gender-based violence, countries must count every woman and girl — in life and in death. A robust civil registration and vital statistics (CRVS) system that captures complete, timely and disaggregated death data, including cause of death through a well-functioning medico-legal system, is essential. ESCAP is supporting countries to implement civil registration inequality assessments which are helping to shed light on the female deaths which go unregistered. UNFPA supports countries to strengthen CRVS across the life course and to improve the availability and use of high-quality data on gender-based violence through kNOwVAWdata, and also works with governments to ensure this evidence informs policies and interventions that support survivors and prevent violence against women. 

Strengthening female death registration is not just a technical or statistical issue, it is central to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals and upholding human rights. When female deaths are not officially registered, or their manner of death accurately recorded, their experiences in life are erased. When data systems fail to detect femicide, they are harder to prevent. When manner-of-death is misclassified, accountability is undermined.

The international community must act decisively. What is needed now is political will to ensure that every woman and girl is seen and counted — in life and in death.  Aligning country commitments to register all deaths across the region - regardless of sex and circumstances - with the UN Statistical Framework for Measuring the Gender-Related Killing of Women and Girls is a crucial step toward accountability and ending gender-based violence.