Violence against women is a form of gender violence, and the lethal aspect of it, defined as femicide, is a global health and human rights problem.

This study looked at 330 cases of femicide that occurred in North West Italy, between 1970 and 2020, committed by 303 male perpetrators. The victims included women who were prostitutes and those who were not.

Findings show that only a small proportion of femicide occurs within an anonymous setting: Victims were mostly killed by a man they knew. The type and intensity of the relationship was likely to affect how the violence occurred. In those cases in which victims and perpetrators had an intimate relationship, the risk of overkill, that is, an excessive use of violence that goes further than what is necessary to cause death, was four times higher in comparison with the murder of unknown victims. As with non-prostitutes, the risk of overkill was almost fourfold for those prostitutes who knew their perpetrators. Furthermore, when comparing prostitutes with any unknown victims, the risk of being overkilled was almost five times higher for the former, suggesting that prostitutes are more at risk of being murdered with excessive violence. In addition, prostitutes were more likely to be victims of sexual murder, postmortem mutilation, and being killed by men who had previous criminal records.

Women who are victims of violence are not a homogeneous group, although some of the psychosocial correlates are the same and relevance should be given to the features behind the type, intensity, and nature of the relationship between prostitutes and non-prostitutes and their perpetrators. These variables are what make violence against women a preventable problem.

对妇女的暴力行为是性别暴力的一种形式，其致命的方面，即杀害女性，是一个全球性的健康和人权问题。

这项研究调查了 1970 年至 2020 年间在意大利西北部发生的 330 起杀害女性案件，由 303 名男性犯罪者实施。受害者包括妓女和非妓女。

调查结果表明，只有一小部分杀戮女性发生在匿名环境中：受害者大多是被他们认识的人杀害的。关系的类型和强度可能会影响暴力的发生方式。在受害者和肇事者有亲密关系的案件中，与谋杀不明受害者相比，过度杀戮的风险，即过度使用暴力超过造成死亡的必要程度的风险，要高出四倍。与非卖淫者一样，那些认识施暴者的妓女被杀的风险几乎是其四倍。此外，在将妓女与任何未知受害者进行比较时，前者被过度杀害的风险几乎高出五倍，这表明妓女更有可能因过度暴力而被谋杀。此外，

遭受暴力侵害的妇女不是一个同质群体，尽管一些心理社会相关性是相同的，并且应考虑卖淫者与非卖淫者及其施暴者之间关系的类型、强度和性质背后的特征。这些变数使得对妇女的暴力行为成为一个可以预防的问题。