By EFE-EPA
The United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) reported Monday that in 2018 at least 3,529 women were victims of femicide in 25 countries in Latin America.
Data from the Gender Equality Observatory for Latin America and the Caribbean (OIG) of ECLAC indicated that four of the five highest rates of femicide in the region were recorded in countries in Central America and the Caribbean, in addition to Bolivia in South America.
A feminist activists poses with a slogan 'Stop Femicide' during a rally for the Elimination of Violence Against Women in Paris, France, 06 July 2019. (EPA-EFE/CHRISTOPHE PETIT TESSON / MANILA BULLETIN)
El Salvador, Honduras and Bolivia were the three nations with the highest proportion of homicides due to gender, with rates of 6.8, 5.1 and 2.3 women killed per 100,000, respectively.
Guatemala, with a rate of two femicides per 100,000 women, and the Dominican Republic, with 1.9, completed the five countries with the highest percentage of deaths.
Alicia Bárcena, executive secretary of ECLAC, highlighted the seriousness of the phenomenon on the International Day Against Violence against Women.
“The murder of women for reasons of gender is the end of the continuum of violence experienced by women in the region,” she said.
“The figures compiled by ECLAC, in an effort to make visible the seriousness of the phenomenon, show the depth reached by the patriarchal, discriminatory and violent cultural in the region.”
The regional institution pointed out the difficulty of comparing data between the different countries of Latin America due to the fact that in some nations the criminalization of feminicide does not exist, so figures were collected of women killed at the hands of partners or ex-partners.
The normative range of the situation is wide, from countries that contemplate a broad definition of femicide to some that reduce it only to marriage and cohabiting relationships.
“Millions of women in the region have taken to the streets to claim and demand something as fundamental but violated as the right to live lives free of violence,” Bárcena said.
Brazil and Mexico stood out from the rest in terms of the number of women victims of femicide, which reached 1,206 and 898 respectively with rates of 1.1 femicides per 100,000 women in the South American country and 1.4 in the North American.