Neither at home nor on public roads: violence against women does not stop in Colombia

A woman raises a banner during a march this Wednesday in Bogotá.Mauricio Dueñas Castañeda / EFE

In Colombia, neither the house nor the public highway are safe places for women.

During 2019, according to the National Institute of Legal Medicine and Forensic Sciences, 1,001 women were murdered.

Four out of 10 murders were committed in the home (39.4%), while three out of 10 (31.4%) occurred on public roads.

But throughout 2020, lockdowns have become, as in the rest of the world, another risk factor for women.

The main cities of the country, with Bogotá at the head, have been the scene of massive marches this Wednesday on the occasion of the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women.

This year, since the beginning of the covid-19 health emergency, the long and strict quarantines decreed in several Latin American countries have multiplied the exposure to cases of violence.

“The isolation measures at home, which for women and girls mean confinement with those who attack them, economic insecurity and even an increase in sexual harassment behaviors, have intensified the scenarios of danger for them,” indicates UN Women Colombia, which develops 16 days of digital activism to eradicate gender violence and illuminate iconic places in Bogotá.

“Parallel to the implementation of containment measures by the countries to stop the spread of the coronavirus, violence against women and girls, especially violence in the private sphere, in some countries, calls to help lines have been multiplied by five ”, said the United Nations.

"In others, formal complaints of domestic violence have decreased because of survivors' difficulties in seeking help and accessing support services through regular channels."

According to figures from the same Forensic Institute of Colombia, only between March 25 and September 22, 2020, during preventive isolation, 392 women were murdered.

The Prosecutor's Office, for its part, handles other figures of femicides, which it understands as murders that "are due to their condition of being a woman, their gender identity, or within the framework of a subordinate or unequal relationship of power."

Thus, it registers 204 victims of femicide in 2019 and 149 so far in 2020.

As a sign of rejection, the feminist movement of Colombia has also marched this afternoon in different cities of the country to join the cry of

The

The UN inaugurated the sound exhibition

a tribute that reconstructs the memory of women who have been victims of femicides in the Andean country.