Wrong Number, Right Cause? How a False Femicide Statistic Shaped Awareness in Northern Ireland

October 19, 2026 The Gown Queen's University Belfast 36 Views 0 Comments belfast, northern ireland, politics, QUB 11 min read

Can misinformation raise meaningful awareness? The complicated legacy of Northern Ireland’s Femicide claim.

By Carmen Gray

Femicide Rate

‘Northern Ireland has the highest rate of Femicide in Europe.’

Many readers will recognise this statistic. The catalyst of its presence in the public domain appears to be a 2019 BBC article [1] titled ‘Femicide: The murders giving Europe a wake-up call’. The article details a 2017 Eurostat report which found that, jointly with Romania, Northern Ireland had the highest rate of murders in Europe committed by a partner, at a rate of 0.43 per 100,000 inhabitants. This is the graph included in the original BBC report:

The claims were groundbreaking data within Northern Ireland, and came to many as a shock and wake up call to their understanding of violent crime, particularly violence against women and girls in Northern Ireland.

The statistic’s influence did not end with the BBC report. It travelled from the headlines into the halls of Stormont, where MLAs repeatedly invoked it during Assembly debates over the following years. [2]

After it had entered political vernacular, it’s influence was hard to track. In 2021, Women’s Aid Northern Ireland invoked the statistic as part of its campaign calling for action on violence against women and girls, launching a petition that contributed to growing pressure for a dedicated strategy.[3] The Salvation Army [4], the director of the National Women’s Council [5], European Correspondent [6], new research and academic papers [7], the University of Manchester [8] and posters in the Queen’s University bathrooms are among some other sources which feature the statistic in some way.

To gauge how widely the claim had circulated, I polled 78 people, including both students and non-students across Northern Ireland, England and Scotland who either do or had at one point lived in Northern Ireland, with ages ranging from 18-77.

91% of participants had encountered the statistic at least once.

Of the 9% whom had not heard it, half were aged 45 or over. While this small sample cannot establish a generational pattern, it raises the possibility that younger people in my poll had greater exposure to the statistic.

I was curious as to people’s first exposure to the statistic. I interviewed one participant and asked where he had encountered the statistic. ‘The first place I saw it…’ he noted, ‘…was on a poster in the men’s bathrooms at Queens. After that, it was on the news a bit more and on social media’.

Another participant reflected that he could no longer recall where he had first encountered the statistic. Instead, it had become so familiar that he had absorbed it as part of his general understanding of the issue, detached from its original source.

I also wanted to measure belief in the statistic. A third participant I interviewed noted that she had doubted it at the beginning, seeing it as too high. She felt that public awareness of femicide is messy, as we hear ‘so little’ of domestic violence cases in the media that it is an issue which is either seen as ‘a common thing…or doesn’t happen at all’.

A fourth participant disagreed, noting that she felt it was ‘definitely true’.

Perhaps it was this uncertainty that made the statistic so compelling. The news can often feel crowded with national and international affairs, and such a shocking statistic gave the problem a ranking and a place in the public consciousness.

The Power of Statistics

The Irish Times [9] compiled a piece on the power of statistics and how they shape public understanding, referencing the Northern Ireland Femicide statistic.

Northern Ireland’s position as a post-conflict society often leaves areas such as politics and policymaking in a state of instability and stagnation, with over 77% of people indicating low levels of trust in government in 2025[10].

However, the statistic did make an impact in Stormont. Visible frameworks were set up in the years between 2019 and 2025 to tackle the issue. The Ending Violence against Women and Girls (EVWAG) framework was established in the Executive Office[11], brought in through the Stormont Assembly during which MLA’s cited the statistic to underline the urgency of the issue[12].

Though deeply troubling, the statistic appeared to unite otherwise differing beliefs around a shared sense of urgency and a common goal of reversing what seemed to be a sudden and largely unexamined phenomenon.

It was all the more perplexing, then, when the statistic was revealed to be false.

Truth behind the numbers

Doubt about the statistic had existed alongside the outrage, particularly with it’s misquoting after an MLA incorrectly asserted in Assembly that Northern Ireland has actually had the joint highest rate of femicide in Europe since 2021[13].

This incorrect recollection was picked up by the Irish News[14], and uncertainty about the figure grew. FactCheck NI[15] as early as 2019 had considered issues with the legitimacy of the statistic; a limited list of countries used in the tables, and doubts in how the maths was presented.

The PSNI in 2022[16] asked Eurostat for clarification, and then discovered that the figure was miscalculated; Eurostat placed Northern Ireland’s total domestic-abuse homicide rate in the intimate-partner homicide category.

The corrected figure stood at 0.21 rather than 0.43 per 100,000 inhabitants, less than half of the original quoted.

They also noted that Eurostat stopped publishing UK crime data in the relevant dataset from 2019, following Brexit, leaving Northern Ireland today with no clarity on how the figure may have developed over the last decade.

False Information

This fact, not only for some readers but also for me writing, may feel a little uncomfortable. The difficulty lies in the fact that the issue of violence against women and girls is an important one; and while we thankfully do not top the list of highest rates, it is a genuine problem which deserves the resources and attention it attains.

Sitting with this discomfort brought me to another question: is it ever good to have false information?

And my answer to that, despite my qualms, is no.

Is Awareness Enough?

Despite all of the good that the statistic brought, false statistics still pose a danger. We do the women and girls affected by violence a disservice when we imply that their suffering must be greater, or that there must be more victims, for their experiences to warrant concern.

Additionally, when we rely on untrue facts, we often miss the true ones. A research project by Queens titled Under Pressure: Raising Awareness of Non-Fatal Strangulation[17], revealed grounded and useful information surrounding patterns of abuse and identifying levels of risk.

It is this kind of detailed, evidence-based research that allows services to respond to victims’ actual experiences and needs, rather than relying on assumptions or headline figures.

I decided to ask some of the poll participants a second question:

Were you aware of the Queens research project: Under Pressure: Raising Awareness of Non-Fatal Strangulation?

Of the participants asked, less than 1 in 5 (19.4%) responded that they had heard of it.

Is awareness enough? If 91% of my poll respondents recognised a statistic about violence against women that was fundamentally incorrect, while only 19% were familiar with research examining the realities behind that violence, what does that tell us about the nature of public awareness? Does knowing a striking statistic reflect a meaningful understanding of the issue, or have we confused the ability to repeat a headline with the knowledge needed to confront the problem?

Concern for women should mean more than familiarity with the most alarming figures. It should involve a willingness to understand the evidence, recognise the complexity of violence and engage with what might actually prevent it. Otherwise, we risk mistaking the visibility of a cause for a solution to it.

Which is why I answer that, no, false information is never beneficial in and of itself. However, there is an argument to be made that without the original statistic- perhaps the research project may not have been created, or less people may have read it.

It is a question I grapple with even as I write, and one for which I believe we will never have a full answer.

What next?

Undeniably, greater awareness of violence against women and the emergence of research into femicide are positive developments. But there is something troubling about the role this statistic played in Northern Ireland’s political debate.

One question we must all consider is this: when we encounter statistics about serious social issues, do we engage with them in ways that deepen our understanding and encourage meaningful change, or do we absorb the most alarming figures and move on when the next sensationalised headline arrives? With social media accelerating the circulation of headlines, our attention is increasingly pulled from one story to the next. Without accurate foundation, even the most striking claims are easily discarded.

But perhaps there is a bigger question. In a political system long criticised for delays in decision-making and policymaking, must Northern Ireland become the worst in Europe at something before Stormont is compelled to act?

And if so, what will that something be next?

References:

[1] Blunt, Rosie. 2019. “Femicide: The Murders Giving Europe a Wake-Up Call.” BBC News. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-49586759.

[2] Northern Ireland Assembly. 2024. “Official Report: Monday 26 February 2024.” February 26, 2024. https://aims.niassembly.gov.uk/officialreport/report.aspx?docID=389673&eveDate=2024%2F02%2F26.

[3] Women’s Aid Federation Northern Ireland. 2021. “Women’s Aid Launch a Petition for a Violence against Women & Girls Strategy in NI.” Press release, March 9, 2021. https://www.womensaidni.org/press-release-womens-aid-launch-a-petition-for-a-violence-against-women-and-girls-strategy-in-ni.

[4] Salvationist. 2023. “Learning to Support Survivors of Domestic Abuse.” November 25, 2023. https://www.salvationist.org.uk/articles/learning-support-survivors-domestic-abuse.

[5] O’Connor, Orla. 2025. “An All-Island Approach to Tackling Violence against Women.” AgendaNI, February 3, 2025. https://www.agendani.com/an-all-island-approach-to-tackling-violence-against-women/.

[6] European Correspondent. “Northern Ireland Has One of the Highest Femicide Rates in Europe…” https://www.facebook.com/europeancorrespondent/posts/%EF%B8%8Fnorthern-ireland-has-one-of-the-highest-femicide-rates-in-europe-while-femicide/526094323617029/

[7] Travers, Áine, and Tracey McDonagh. 2020. “Promising Directions for Intimate Partner Violence Prevention: The Case of Northern Ireland.” Irish Probation Journal. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/345325262_Promising_Directions_for_Intimate_Partner_Violence_Prevention_The_Case_of_Northern_Ireland.

[8] Stafford, Joe. 2025. “80% of Northern Irish Women First Endured Sexist Behaviour as Children.” University of Manchester, April 24, 2025. https://www.manchester.ac.uk/about/news/northern-irish-women-first-endured-sexist-behaviour-as-children/.

[9] O’Leary, Naomi. 2021. “How Counting Murders of Women Changed the Law in Italy.” Irish Times, November 10, 2021. https://www.irishtimes.com/news/world/europe/how-counting-murders-of-women-changed-the-law-in-italy-1.4725022.

[10] ARK. 2025. “Northern Ireland Life and Times Survey 2025: TRNIEXEC.” https://www.ark.ac.uk/nilt/2025/Political_Attitudes/TRNIEXEC.html.