Find out about the killing of women in Central America

ON 25th NOVEMBER, WE SPEAK OUT AGAINST WOMAN-KILLING IN MEXICO AND CENTRAL AMERICA

25th November is the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women, and the beginning of the annual 16 Days of Activism against Gender Violence. To mark it, the Central America Women’s Network (CAWN) and the Honduran Women’s Studies Centre (CEMH) are holding three events condemning the rising violence against women and girls in the region and worldwide and calling for an end to this violence:

25 Nov, 4–6pm: Parliamentary meeting. House of Commons, London

26 Nov, 7.30pm: Film screening, followed by Q&A “Killer’s Paradise: Women Victims of Violence in Guatemala ”. Bolivar Hall, London , W1T.

27 Nov, 3-6pm: Seminar “Extreme forms of Violence against Women: Femicide in Mexico and Central America ”. Woburn House Conference Centre, London , WC1.

Three women activists and expert witnesses from Mexico , Guatemala and Honduras will speak of the human rights violations and horrors of violence against women in Mexico and Central America and the failure of the region’s governments to prosecute them.
 
Femicide – a hate crime against women

Violence against women is one of the most serious problems confronting Latin America today. Every day, somewhere in the region, hundreds of women and girls are beaten, raped or sexually assaulted, tortured, mutilated or subjected to other physical or mental cruelty. 

At the furthest extreme of violence is the crime known as femicide or feminicide (femicidio or feminicidio in Spanish).[1] Femicide first hit the international headlines in the 1990s when the mutilated bodies of raped and murdered women began to be discovered on waste ground outside the town of Ciudad Juárez , on the Mexico–US border.

Since then, these violent woman-killings have spread throughout Mexico and Central America like a forest fire. The figures tell a shocking story:

In Honduras:

v    A femicide occurs every 48 hours.

v    Between 2002 and July 2009, an estimated 1,230 femicides – 127 in the first half of 2009 alone occurred, according to data collected by CEMH and the Centre for Women’s Rights (CDM). Around 40% of the victims were young women aged 16–30.

In Guatemala:

v    The number of femicides recorded rises every year.

v    Some 3,500 cases were registered between 2000 and 2007.

v    437 women were murdered in 2008 alone, 473 up to 15 October 2009.

In Mexico:

v    Between January 2007 and July 2008 alone, 1,014 femicides were registered, according to the National Citizen Observatory on Feminicide (OCNF).

v    42% of these crimes were committed by a person known to the victim

v     Around 42.7% of victims were women aged 21-40.

v    4 out of 10 women and girls (41%) were killed violent and 1 out of 4 (25.7%) were killed with a handgun.

If we add in the murders of men, Central America had 33 murders per 100,000 of the population in 2008 ( Honduras 58, El Salvador 52, Guatemala 48). It is not surprising that, in its Human Rights Report on Central America for 2009/2010, the United Nations Development Fund (UNDP) ranks Central America as the world’s most violent region of non-political crime.

“The rise in femicide … results from permanent State impunity as regards persecuting perpetrators, and the social system that permits men to control women’s bodies” - Katherine Ronderos, CAWN

The State response – turning a blind eye?

Yet, on the whole, the region’s governments do not pursue or punish this crime. They do not even enforce their own legislation. Mexico, Costa Rica and Guatemala have all passed laws making violence against women and femicide a crime, yet they are still failing to guarantee women’s safety or to create an environment in which women can live without the daily threat of violence.

“Femicide is a pandemic that happens during either peace or war. Mostly, it is committed by men known to the victims (husbands, boyfriends, relatives, friends). But because of police inefficiency, these crimes are usually attributed to unknown perpetrators, such as drug traffickers and members of gangs (maras)” - Mirta Kennedy, CEMH

Adequate legislation is of course a step in the right direction, but without enforcement it is meaningless. The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights reported in 2006 that, despite the gravity of the situation, States have yet to fulfil their obligation of due diligence in the prevention, investigation, legal prosecution, sanction and reparation of femicide/feminicide.

The international community remains largely unconcerned about this issue. Although in 2007 the European Parliament passed a resolution calling on the Central American governments, the EU institutions and EU Member State governments to take meaningful actions towards eradicating discrimination and violence against women, punishing killers and strengthening legal systems, little has been done since. Meanwhile, support for the work of families of victims, women’s organisations and human rights defenders and activists is needed more than ever in Central America .

In the long term, only real social and cultural change will end the long and terrible history of discrimination and violence against women and girls just because they are female.                         

For more information about this issue and to RSVP to the events: www.cawn.org