Statement of compliance

The Femicide Census compiles data and reports about women killed by men in all forms of violence against women. The Femicide Census is pleased to state its voluntary adherence to the Code of Practice for Statistics which has three pillars:

• Trustworthiness – Confidence in the people and organisations that produce statistics and data.
• Quality – Data and methods that produce assured statistics.
• Value – Statistics that support society’s need for information.
  This statement describes how these principles are followed and applied in our work.

Trustworthiness: The research team, who compile the data and write the reports, consists of assistant researchers, senior researcher and director of research and development. They are accountable to the founders of the Femicide Census who include an expert of several decades of experience in the field of violence against women currently completing a PhD in men’s fatal violence against women and a former lawyer with a particular interest in upholding state obligations. The team are recruited and managed transparently in accordance with best practice for human resources and having relevant experience, qualifications and expertise. The research team is based at nia, a registered and established charity (number 1037072) operational since 1975, meeting relevant standards and delivering a range of services funded through a variety of sources including independent trusts, Government funding and individual donors.

Quality: The terms and parameters for the report and criteria for which cases should be included are clearly prescribed and adhered to. Each report includes an explanation of the methodology. The data is gathered through Freedom of Information requests to the Police and supported by other publicly available statutory sources. In addition, detail is filled out through media reports of each killing, a minimum of three different media sources with different perspectives are consulted. Data is marked as either verified (statutory sources) or non-verified (media sources) and entered on a bespoke database on the software platform Relativity, a sophisticated, interactive platform hosted by Deloitte which facilitates analytical searches and statistical breakdowns. It provides a secure document repository with highly customisable access permissions and allows us to easily link external documents. Where necessary, researchers cross check data that could be interpreted in different ways. There are also random checks of each others’ data to ensure both accuracy and consistency of allocation. The research team keeps an ongoing log of queries, issues and clarifications which is discussed, updated and acted on by team members after discussion including, where appropriate, with senior management. Where there is a paucity of information, doubts about reliability of information or other ambiguity about the details and status of certain cases – the information may be noted separately but not included or is recorded with caveats. Senior management go through interim data and early drafts of reports to quality assure the report, interrogate and challenge the data and make decisions on what is included and how it is interpreted and presented.

Value: The Femicide Census is the most comprehensive single source of UK information about women who have been killed and the men who have killed them. The Census goes into considerable detail on all aspects of the killing with a view to identifying patterns and trends and so enabling improved prevention of, and responses to, violence against women.

The Femicide Census has a range of uses to contribute to improving knowledge, strategy, policy and practice, including:

• Raising awareness of men’s fatal violence against women
• Providing a clearer picture of men’s fatal violence against women in the UK by factors including relationship between perpetrator and victim, age, form of violence selected, location of fatal incident and justice outcome
• Creating advocacy tools based on concrete data on intimate partner violence homicides and other forms of familial or non-familial killings of women
• Providing a resource for academics, journalists, lawyers, policymakers and others researching femicide
• Identifying state failings
• Remembering, and raising the status of, women killed by men.

The value of the research is evidenced by the extent to which it is sought out and relied on in various ways by a range of actors including; lawyers preparing relevant legal cases, academics citing it in their research, media commentary on the scale and extent of male violence against women, parliamentarians in their speeches, questions and answers in the House of Commons, invitations nationally and internationally to speak on the census and ombudsmen and inspectorates nationally and internationally recommending it as good practice or referencing it (e.g. UN Special Rapporteur on Violence Against Women, World Health Organisation, Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of the Constabulary, Mayor’s Office for Policing and Crime, London).

It is therefore with great pleasure and confidence that we affirm our voluntary adherence to the Code of Practice for Statistics and we hope that the Femicide Census will be of interest, use and reliability to many.

For more information see: www.femicidecensus.org

The Femicide Census, C/o The Nia Project, P.O. Box 59203, London N1 3XP, tel. 0207 683 1270, (registered charity number 1037072)