The names of 19 women believed to have been murdered by their children in the last year will be read in parliament on Thursday, as research showed almost one in five women murdered by men since last International Women’s Day were victims or suspected victims of matricide.
For the 11th year in a row, Jess Phillips will read the names of the 108 women murdered in the UK by men (or where a man has been accused) in the last 12 months. As in previous years, you will have to request special dispensation to speak beyond the time allotted to each MP in the International Women’s Day parliamentary debate, because reading the names will take more than five minutes.
Among the names, which are recorded by the Femicide Census project Counting Dead Women, are 19 murdered mothers where their son is the suspect, the highest matricide rate recorded in 16 years of Femicide Census data.
Clarrie O’Callaghan, co-founder of the Femicide Census, said the organization had watched in horror as it witnessed the growing problem of matricide in the UK, pointing to the collapse of mental health care, problematic substance abuse and housing insecurity as contributing factors.
“Often, men who have killed their mothers have a history of abuse from their previous partners, so they moved in with their mother after those relationships broke down,” she said. “Yet, even though we have reported on matricide for 10 years, no state agency has yet recognized matricide, much less taken responsibility for addressing it.
“It is rarely recognized that women are at risk of fatal violence from their children and there are few dedicated services for older women across the UK.”
Last year, The Guardian revealed that almost one in 10 of the women killed by men in the UK over the previous 15 years were mothers killed by their sons. The 2,000 Women Femicide Census report showed that more than 170 mothers were killed by their children between 2009 and 2021, and mental illness was a factor in 58% of matricide cases.
The government published its Violence Against Women and Girls (VAWG) strategy in December, which set out plans to tackle harmful behavior among children, teach pupils about healthy relationships and the impact of pornography, and equip teachers with the skills to intervene. Women’s organizations hailed it as a “milestone” but warned it fell “well short” of the funding needed to realize the government’s ambition to halve violence against women and girls within a decade.
O’Callaghan said that although the strategy, the first to mention femicide, was a “step in the right direction”, many areas of intervention provided by specialist organizations had gone unrecognised. “We need new money, not redistribute previously committed money,” he added.
The government has said the strategy is backed by £1bn of funding, including £50m for therapeutic support for child victims of sexual abuse, £19m for councils to provide safe housing for survivors of domestic abuse and a £550m investment to support victims and witnesses across the criminal justice system.
“Specialist charities run by women…are at risk of closure,” O’Callaghan said. “This has been happening for years in the sector and this is a government that knows this, but there is little change on the ground.”
