Black Women Murdered at Higher Rates than Any Other Race Due to Intimate Partner Violence

According to a new report published Thursday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, more than half of female homicide victims are killed in connection to domestic violence also known as intimate partner violence. Women of color have falling victim to these cases at the highest rates.

More than 55 percent of the deaths counted were related to partner violence, with a vast majority of the cases being carried out by a male partner. “Intimate partner violence can affect anyone … it really just shows that [this] is a public health problem,” says Emiko Petrosky, a science officer at the CDC and an author of the report.

“Black women are killed at a rate of 4.4 per 100,000 people, and indigenous women at a rate of 4.3 per 100,000; while every other race has a homicide rate of between 1 and 2 per 100,000,” NPR reports.

Cindy Southworth, the executive vice president of the National Network to End Domestic Violence, tells Bustle that the only solution for ending this epidemic is to address race relations and inequality in general. “If we want to end domestic violence and domestic homicide we must also end unconscious institutional racism and other barriers that impact survivors,” Southworth said.

She added, “Our organization envisions a world where no one experiences domestic terrorism in the home, and that survivors know that reaching out for help will not activate a disparate response by the justice system due to the race or ethnicity of the abusive partner.”