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"The reality is that they continue to kill us": thousands of women protest in Latin America against gender violence

2022-11-26T02:14:18.801Z


On the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women, the streets of large cities in the region were filled with voices demanding greater protection. “We have the best laws in the region, but their implementation fails,” claims an activist.


By

The Associated Press

Killing a woman can lead to life imprisonment in

Argentina

or a sentence of up to 60 years in

Mexico

.

In

Guatemala

it implies up to 50 years in prison, 41 in

Colombia

, 40 in

Honduras

and no less than 12 in any of the 17 Latin American countries that have criminalized the crime of femicide.

But even with such high punishments, the subcontinent is home to 14 of the 25 most violent countries for women.

It has been almost a decade since the region began to take the issue seriously, at least since legislation.

However, "there is only one reality: they continue to kill us," denounced Ada Beatriz Rico, director of the Femicide Observatory of Argentina and president of the civil organization La Casa del Encuentro, the most relevant in the protection of women.

Her diagnosis this November 25, International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women, is simple: "We have the best laws in the region, but their implementation fails."

For this reason, thousands of women throughout the region have taken to the streets to protest this Friday.

Protesters in Asunción, Paraguay, commemorate the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women, on November 25, 2022.Marta Escurra / AP

Latin America began to sanction gender norms in the first decade of the 2000s, which the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (CEPAL) called "first generation on domestic or intrafamily violence."

As of 2010, penal reforms began to germinate to create the figure of femicide.

Guatemala and Chile were the advance in 2008 and 2010, respectively.

Femicide has been punished in Argentina since 2012, in Mexico, Bolivia and Peru since 2013;

in Ecuador and Venezuela since 2014, and in Colombia since 2015.

Cuba and Haiti are the only ones that lack a specific criminal offense for the violent deaths of women with a gender component and these are treated as aggravated homicides.

This legal armor governs a territory of 640 million inhabitants where the deaths of women are counted by the hour: a woman is murdered every 38 hours in Venezuela or Ecuador, for example.

Women protest in Mexico City on the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women, on November 25, 2022. Aurea del Rosario / AP

In Mexico, 3,750 women were murdered in 2021, of which 1,004 were classified as femicides, according to data from the National Public Security System.

And up to September of this year there have been 695 femicides, a figure that is below the 736 for the same period last year.

Hundreds marched this Friday in the Mexican capital to demand justice for the victims of femicide, the most recent of them the lawyer and feminist activist Grisell Pérez Rivera who has disappeared since 2021 and whose body was found just this Friday.

In Colombia, 758 women were victims of homicide between January and September 2022, according to the National Institute of Legal Medicine and Forensic Sciences.

In 2021 the figure was 993. In addition, this year they reported 26,377 cases of intimate partner violence in which the woman was the victim.

The protests started this Friday afternoon at emblematic points in Bogotá such as the Monument to the Heroes and the National University, demanding an end to gender violence.

A performance in Medellín, Colombia, during the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women, on November 25, 2022. Fredy Builes / Getty Images

In Argentina, the National Registry of Feminicides of the Supreme Court is in charge of counting the murders of women annually.

In 2021, its last published figure, there were 231 direct victims and 20 linked femicides - when the victim is not the woman but another person, frequently the children.

Until October 31 of this year there are 247 femicides and 16 linked, according to the civil observatory Adriana Marisel Zambrano.

"Not one less!" Dozens of protesters chanted this Friday in Buenos Aires.

Chile has kept records of femicides since 2007 and since then it has added 710 cases, according to figures from the Ministry for Women and Gender Equity and the National Women's Service.

In 2021, 44 femicides were registered and 33 this year until November 8.

Hundreds gathered this Friday in the historic Plaza Italia in Santiago de Chile to protest.

Photos of murdered Iranian women hang on a tree in front of the Palacio de la Moneda in Santiago, Chile, on November 25, 2022. MARTIN BERNETTI / AFP via Getty Images

In Peru, the prosecutor's office has recorded 44 proven femicides so far in 2022 compared to 211 in 2021. Dozens of feminist collectives took to the streets of Lima in a symbolic way to protest this Friday.

The Guatemalan prosecutor's office did not provide figures for the deaths of the women, but The Associated Press accessed statistics from the prosecutor's office on reports of violence.

Until the first week of August, they totaled 28,906, of which 80% were dismissed with the tax justification of “it cannot proceed”.

In Guatemala City, activists and relatives of the victims took to the streets with the photos and names of their loved ones on banners.

Women demonstrate in Guatemala City, on November 25, 2022. JOHAN ORDONEZ / AFP via Getty Images

In Venezuela, 1,008 "accomplished and frustrated" cases have been recorded since 2017, although the Prosecutor's Office has not offered figures of aggressors with a final sentence.

Dozens of protesters dyed the streets of Caracas this Friday green and purple in protest of the violence.

Ecuador began counting femicides in 2014 and until November 2021 it had 1,022.

This year, it has record numbers with 345 violent deaths.

In the streets of Quito dozens marched and participated in performances to protest against the violence.

A demonstration of women in Caracas, Venezuela.

on November 25, 2022.Anadolu Agency / Anadolu Agency via Getty Images

The bloodiest year for women in Bolivia was 2018 with 120 femicides.

According to data from the State Attorney General's Office, between January and October of this year there were 77. In 2020, with 113 femicides, the Andean nation ranked sixth in Latin America and first in South America with the most women murdered for reasons of gender, according to ECLAC. .

In Cuba the figures are partial or out of date.

They are still governed by a 2016 National Gender Survey in which 26.6% of women declared having been victims of gender violence.

According to the YoSiteCreo portal, from a group of civil activists, there have been 32 femicides so far this year.

Women hold candles in Quito, Ecuador, to protest against sexist violence, on November 25, 2022. Dolores Ochoa / AP

If the problem is quantified and the rules to combat it are in force, what is wrong?

Everything else.

The Venex social organizations that work with victims see leaks in the entire state structure: in the judicial system, in the poor gender training of police, prosecutors or judicial officials, in the lack of education on equality, in the dispersion or lack of resources and, mainly, in impunity.

Source: telemundo

All news articles on 2022-11-26

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