StopFemicideIran has documented at least 187 femicide cases in Iran during 2025. The organization reviewed 241 cases involving the killing of women — a number that may represent only a fraction of the actual total.

In Iran, women continue to be killed for making choices that should belong to them alone: choosing whether to marry, ending a relationship, seeking a divorce, defending their financial independence, or refusing to submit to male relatives.

The latest annual report by StopFemicideIran, titled Counted Despite the Darkness: Documentation of Femicide Cases, documents at least 187 femicides in Iran in 2025. That amounts to more than 15 documented killings every month — almost one woman every two days.

The cases involved women and girls from different social, economic and ethnic backgrounds. Among the victims were mothers, girls, university employees, asylum seekers and athletes. Their individual circumstances differed, but the same patterns repeatedly emerge: control, domestic violence, coercion, so-called family honour and the failure of institutions to protect women before it was too late.

There is no honor in these killings

When a woman is murdered because she seeks freedom, rejects a marriage, leaves a relationship or is accused of damaging the reputation of her family, the word “honor” is not an explanation. It is a justification used by perpetrators — and sometimes accepted or repeated by authorities and the media.

A killing committed in the name of family reputation is not an act of honor. It is murder. The victim is punished for exercising rights that men routinely claim for themselves.

The StopFemicideIran report also makes clear that the documented figures cannot be regarded as a complete national count. Censorship, fear of persecution, social stigma, limited access to information and the absence of reliable official statistics all contribute to underreporting. The actual number of women killed is therefore likely to be considerably higher.

A pattern that must be investigated

The report is based on publicly available government sources, media reports and social media information. It provides an important record of cases that might otherwise disappear from public view.

Documentation matters. Without names, dates, locations and circumstances, femicide can be reduced to isolated incidents. But when cases are examined together, a wider pattern becomes visible: women are being killed within systems that tolerate male control, minimize domestic violence and fail to intervene when threats are known.

The question is not only how many women were killed. The question is how many could have been protected — and why they were not.

StopFemicideIran’s report is an important contribution to that investigation. It ensures that these deaths are counted, recorded and connected to the wider reality of gender-based violence in Iran.