Studies show you're likely to be murdered by your partner than anyone else

Do you know that the person who's more likely to murder you is not some random stranger on the street, but someone you spend all your time with and even sleep in the same bed with?

Trigger Warning: The extreme domestic violence stats below are jarring

Every six hours, a woman is killed by her intimate partner. This comes from a study of female homicide in South Africa.

More than 40% of women who died in the past five years did so at the hands of a current or former partner; and as of 2021, over five females were killed every hour by a family member, according to UN figures on global femicide. They also found that the highest femicide rate is in Africa.

Only 11% of female fatalities in England and Wales during the past five years were killed by a stranger, according to Sky News.

Men are also victims. Vawnet (an online resource for domestic violence) reports that about 4.9% of male murder victims were killed by an intimate partner.

In 2022, Daily Trust did a survey and discovered that 35 women were killed by their husbands while wives killed their husbands on 14 different occasions between January 2021 to March 2022.

Domestic Violence: Partners usually have motivation and means to grievously harm each other. ece-auto-gen

Why is intimate partner violence common?

The reason behind intimate partner violence is simple: you're more likely to have the motivation, means, and access to commit violence when you know the person.

These murders are usually referred to as crimes of passion and are usually so gruesome. This year, a socialite, Abby Choi in Hong Kong was shot by her ex-husband, he cut her into pieces and boiled her head in a pot.

Sometimes, spouses tend to overkill. This involves still shooting or stabbing even when the person is already dead and disposing of their bodies in the most disgusting way.

While some murders are premeditated, some happen in the heat of the moment. That’s why you some murderers use google to search things like, ‘How to dispose of a dead body’.

Other motives for murder are revenge, an illicit affair and to take up money and properties either from the insurance company or as a next of kin.

Some men in Africa have killed their wives for not preparing their meals or the kind of meals they want or for disobeying their orders.

Women also kill

Women are also known to end their husbands' lives, but in less subtle ways.

A woman would much rather poison her husband slowly than stab him, though women have been known to retaliate with violence during lovers' fights and arguments.

Women may also kill independently and not in self-defence. An American woman, Nancy Crampton Brophy, actually shot her husband dead and wrote an essay about it.