Credit: Arcadio Esquivel, Costa Rica
November 25 marked International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women. To commemorate the day, thousands of activists across Latin America took to the streets to march against gender-based violence. From Mexico City, to the Dominican Republic, to Puerto Rico, to Argentina, women and men painted red and purple hands over their mouths, wore black, and hung stuffed animals from ropes in memory of the victims of femicide. Protests continued throughout the week by groups of women chanting the viral feminist anthem “A Rapist in Your Way,” started by Chilean activists and now adopted across the region.
According to the United Nations, some 87,000 women and girls were murdered around the world in 2017. In Latin America and the Caribbean, 3,529 women were victims of femicide in 2018. According to a new report by the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), the countries with the highest femicide rates in Latin America are: El Salvador (6.8 femicides per 100,000 women), Honduras (5.1), Bolivia (2.3), Guatemala (2.0) and the Dominican Republic (1.9). In the Caribbean, Guyana leads with 8.8 femicides per 100,000 women, followed by Saint Lucia (4.4), Trinidad and Tobago (3.4), Barbados (3.4), and Belize (2.6).
And while all countries in Latin America ratified the United Nations Convention on theElimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women, these commitments have not translated to a decrease in femicides. For starters, not every country shares the same definition, classification and data collection of femicides, resulting in cases of violence against women being wrongly categorized as regular homicides. As is documented by Animal Político, in Mexico, 726 cases of gender-based violence in 2019 were classified as femicides, while another 2,107 murders of women were classified as intentional homicides.
Action to end gender-based violence needs to go beyond signing international conventions and toward enacting laws to codify femicide, properly prosecute abusers, and fund and maintain government institutions dedicated to the prevention of violence against women and girls. #Niunamenos
