In the framework of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, the Small Arms Survey presents a study of available information on violent deaths, disaggregated by sex. A Gendered Analysis of Violent Deaths assesses variations in the risk of violent death for men and women in conflict and non-conflict settings. It finds that in some high-income countries, more women than men die violently every year, and that intimate partner violence remains a problem even when overall homicide rates decrease.

On average, an estimated 526,000 people died violently each year in 2004–09. This figure includes an estimated  55,000 direct conflict deaths, 396,000 intentional homicides, 54,000 ‘unintentional’ homicides, and 21,000 killings during legal interventions. Far more people died violently in non-conflict settings than were killed in conflicts.

The number of violent deaths is frequently used as a proxy for measuring armed violence, because killings are likely to be recorded more systematically than other crimes.