Too many women lose their lives at the hands of men.
In 2013, the women behind The Femicide Census began to actively collect the data that no one else was gathering. It is astonishing to note that no government body was systematically collating the deaths of women at the hands of men. Police forces treated each murder as an isolated incident, in which the public was ‘reassured’ that no threat was posed. Women stepped up to do what institutions failed to do: to bear witness, to document and to collect the data that meant that patterns could be identified, dots could be connected and the myth of the isolated incident could be dismantled.
Collecting data going back to 2009, The Femicide Census showed that approximately every three days, a woman in the UK is killed because of men's violence. It’s easy to talk about statistics without acknowledging that each number is a woman. Each woman has a name. And each woman deserves to be remembered.
The Stars for Murdered Women project is our way of remembering them. We create a unique star for each individual woman. Every star honours a woman who should still be here.
By sharing these stars with you, we invite you to join us in remembering each of our sisters and the life that was taken from her.
A Tradition of Remembrance
At each FiLiA conference, we pay tribute to our fallen sisters. These tributes take different forms, each one creating a powerful moment of unity and collective resistance to men’s violence against women.
In Bradford, we walked through the city with white roses. In Portsmouth, we displayed hearts. In Brighton, we laid red painted pebbles on the beach.
These acts of remembrance are profound. The Stars for Murdered Women project is our way of extending this tribute beyond a single day, beyond a single city, beyond a single moment, and we would love to have women around the country join us in making stars.
The Project
The project is simple yet deeply moving. We make a star for each woman or girl aged 13 and over who have been murdered (in circumstances in which a man or men are primary suspect) over the course of the preceding year, and we display them at the FiLiA conference or in a FiLiA city in the years in between. This year we will be in Blackpool.
Each star is unique and made by hand. Too many headlines reduce women to numbers, or to bit-parts in a man’s breakdown while his character is still praised. The headlines erase women. And each headline fades too quickly as the next takes hold. This project insists on remembering each woman, and recognises that behind the numbers, the women can be honoured individually as well as together. The core focus of this project is that each life is marked with intention and care.
As we, and the volunteers that join us, craft each star, we hold the woman in our thoughts. We acknowledge her existence and her erasure.
When the stars are displayed together, row upon row, star after star, we make visible that violence against women is not ‘an isolated incident’.
Pictured below are the first 12 stars for the project, to give you some inspiration
Gratitude and Purpose
FiLiA and the Stars for Murdered Women team are hugely grateful to The Femicide Census for their incredible work in making sure that the fact that men's violence against women is the number one cause of premature death for women is documented and known.
The Femicide Census ensures that data is collected to show that violence against women follows patterns. These patterns reveal the systems and structures that fail women. They reveal the warning signs that were missed, dismissed and ignored. They reveal the ways that society enables, excuses and minimises male violence against women.
This data allows us to campaign for better protections for women. It allows us to demand policy changes, legal reforms, funding for services, education programmes and cultural shifts. It gives us the evidence we need to campaign to end male violence against women, to insist that this is not inevitable and that this can change.
And crucially, The Femicide Census gathers the names of the women. This gives us the means to remember them, not as cases, not as numbers, not as statistics, but as women – individuals who mattered.
How to Volunteer to Make a Star
Please read and/or download the brief for details on how to join the Stars for Murdered Women project.
Join Us
When you volunteer to make a star, you are joining a movement. You are standing in solidarity with women across the country and around the world who refuse to be silent, who refuse to forget, who refuse to give up. You are honouring a woman whose life was stolen, saying her name and insisting that she be remembered.
We remember them. We honour them. We work for a future where no more stars need to be made.