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Chile Advances in Measuring Femicide: Validating Results and Setting the Roadmap for 2026.

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A national validation workshop marked a key milestone in Chile’s efforts to strengthen the measurement of gender-related killings of women and girls. Convened to review the results of the pilot implementation of the Statistical Framework for the Measurement of Gender-related Killings of Women and Girls (Femicide/Feminicide), the workshop also served to draft a national roadmap for 2026.

The workshop brought together in Chile, the National Statistics Office and the Ministry of Security, and both UNODC’s and UNWomen’s to assess progress, validate findings, and identify opportunities to further strengthen coordination, data availability, and analytical capacity.

Participants validated the main results of the national pilot and highlighted several characteristics of the Chilean National Statistical System and how different institutionas are producing statistics related to femicides:

  • 4 different mechanisms of institutional coordination across police, prosecutorial, judicial, and statistical bodies.

  • Multiple administrative data sources with established mechanisms for cross-validation and case traceability.

  • Strong alignment of variables with the Femicide Statistical Framework and the International Classification of Crime for Statistical Purposes (ICCS), enabling meaningful disaggregation and analysis.

  • Structured investigative practices that capture contextual and narrative information, supporting the identification of gender-related motives.

Where to strengthen next

The dialogue also identified opportunities to deepen and sustain progress:

  • Improve consistency of variable definitions and metadata across institutions.

  • Enhance interoperability and the systematic use of unique identifiers to support longitudinal analysis.

  • Expand the analytical use of narrative data and contextual variables linked to prior violence, risk factors, and institutional response.

  • Strengthen documentation of the statistical process to ensure sustainability and international comparability.

Looking ahead: a roadmap for 2026

The workshop concluded with agreement to develop a national roadmap for 2026, focused on consolidating implementation through targeted technical assistance, capacity building, and formalized coordination mechanisms. This roadmap will guide the progressive institutionalization of the framework within Chile’s official statistical production—supporting prevention, policy design, and accountability.

This activity is part of a regional effort promoted by UNODC and its Regional Office for Central America and the Caribbean in Panama (UNODC ROPAN), as well as its partners, to strengthen criminal information systems and ensure that no case of human trafficking is left out of the registry or institutional response. This activity is the result of technical assistance from the UNODC-INEGI Center of Excellence, which adds to its regional project objectives to strengthen statistical capacities and generate internationally comparable data.

Chile’s experience shows how coordinated institutions, quality data, and shared standards can turn statistics into action to prevent violence against women and girls.