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Femicide in Latin America

Femicide, broadly defined as the murder of a woman motivated by gender, is a prevalent issue in Latin America. In 2016, 14 of the top 25 nations with the highest global femicide rates were Latin American or Caribbean states. 4,445 women were recorded victims of femicide in the region in 2021, translating to the gender-based murder of about one woman every two hours in Latin America.

Throughout the 2010s, Latin American governments began legally recognizing and distinguishing the crime of femicide. This, coupled with records collection support provided to many states by the United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), has allowed Latin American nations to produce more comprehensive data on femicide rates across the region.

Murals in Mexico dedicated to memorializing three victims of femicide: Paulina Camargo, Karla López y Samantha Rosales.

Despite efforts to reform, Latin American femicide rates have not decreased substantially in recent years, with the total number of femicides increasing from 4,091 2020 to 4,445 in 2021. A series of factors account for high rates of femicide in Latin America, including entrenched gender roles and the persistence of machismo, organized crime and criminal governance, and weak justice institutions that treat gender-based crimes with impunity. Activists and feminist groups across Latin America have created movements protesting high rates of femicide and state complicity in failing to address violence against women. Pink crosses are used to commemorate victims of femicide throughout Latin America.

Incidence

Every year, the Gender Equality Observatory (GEO) of the United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) publishes a report of the national femicide rates provided by Latin American and Caribbean nations and territories for the previous year. In 2021, 4,445 women were recorded victims of femicide or gender-related killing in the 18 Latin American nations and territories that reported their data to the GEO. The Wilson Center estimates that this rate translates to the femicide of a woman in Latin America every two hours.

According to the GEO’s data for 2021, Brazil reported the highest raw number of femicides at 1,900 women murdered, while Puerto Rico reported the lowest raw number at 12 women murdered. However, Puerto Rico’s rate may be impacted by the fact that it only records instances of femicide that are specifically perpetrated against women by their intimate partners - the same stipulation is true of Nicaragua, which reported 15 femicides in 2021.

Highest rates of femicide

Honduras, the Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Bolivia, and Brazil reported the highest rates of femicide across the region respectively in 2021. In Honduras, 4.6 women per 100,000 were the victims of femicide. In the Dominican Republic, 2.7 women per 100,000 were the victims of femicide. In El Salvador, 2.4 women per 100,000 were the victims of femicide. In Bolivia, 1.8 women per 100,000 were the victims of femicide. Finally, in Brazil, 1.7 women per 100,000 were the victims of femicide.

Lowest rates of femicide

Nicaragua, Chile, Puerto Rico, Costa Rica, and Peru reported the lowest rates of femicide across Latin America in 2021. In Nicaragua, 0.4 women per 100,000 were the victims of femicide. In Chile, 0.5 women per 100,000 were the victims of femicide. In both Costa Rica and Puerto Rico, 0.7 women per 100,000 were the victims of femicide. In Peru, 0.8 women per 100,000 were the victims of femicide.

Femicide rates over time

ECLAC has compiled data on the change in rates of femicide across Latin American nations and territories over time. Despite recent efforts to reduce gender-based violence in the region, there was no significant decline in rates of femicide across Latin America from 2019 to 2021. Some nations have recorded a small drop in femicide rates in recent years. In Honduras, for example, the femicide rate dropped from 6.0 female victims per 100,000 in 2019 to 4.5 female victims per 100,000 in 2020 - before increasing slightly to 4.6 female victims per 100,000 in 2021. Other nations have recorded an increase in femicide rates over the observed period. In Mexico, for example, the femicide rate increased from 1.5 female victims per 100,000 in 2019 and 2020 to 1.6 female victims per 100,000 in 2021.

Femicide rates by relationship to perpetrator

Globally, the largest perpetrators of femicide are women’s intimate partners - both current and past partners. In Latin America, however, data on the connection between femicide and the victim’s relationship to the offender is less cohesive.

For some nations, the vast majority of femicides are committed by former or current intimate partners. In 2021, Argentina, Uruguay, Peru, Ecuador, Paraguay, and Chile all recorded that women were murdered by former or current intimate partners in over 70% of femicide cases. Specifically, these intimate partner femicides accounted for 93% of Chile’s reported gender-based murders of women. In Uruguay, 1.1 women per 100,000 were the victims of femicide by intimate partners in 2021.

By contrast, for other nations, intimate partner femicides account for the minority of gender-based murders of women. In both El Salvador and Honduras, 25% or less of recorded femicides in 2021 were committed by past or current intimate partners.

Femicide rates by nationality

According to qualitative studies, high migration flow across Latin America likely contributes to increased rates of femicide. Migrant women are particularly vulnerable to gender-based killing and violence as a result of contextual issues like deficient support systems, discrimination, social stigma, insecurity of legal status, and language barriers in Latin America.

However, a limited number of Latin American nations and territories have recorded data on the nationality or migratory status of the victims of femicide. In 2021, foreign women were murdered in 18% of recorded femicides in Chile. In the Dominican Republic, foreign women were the victims in 13% of recorded femicides. Finally, in Costa Rica, foreign women accounted for 11% of recorded femicides. According to ECLAC, these three Latin American nations have experienced high rates of migration and migratory flow in recent years - potentially indicating a relationship between female migration and femicide.

Data collection concerns

Accurate and comprehensive data collection on crime and violence in Latin America poses significant challenges. In the context of gender-based killings, public and private organizations similarly have struggled to aggregate quality data on rates of femicide and relevant contextual factors in Latin American countries. Instances of violence against women and femicide are often underreported, and many nations fail to include intersectional variables like race, ethnicity, migrant status, pregnancy, or sexual orientation in data on femicide victims. Recorded femicide rates are also impacted by definitional differences across the region. For example, both Puerto Rico and Nicaragua, with some of the lowest recorded rates of femicide in Latin America, only report intimate partner femicide to the Gender Equality Observatory - excluding gender-based killings committed by other types of offenders.

However, many nations are making efforts to address issues of incomplete and under-reported data on violence against women. Ten Latin American states have recently passed laws requiring the collection and circulation of data and information on femicide and other crimes of violence against women. Many countries have updated their definitions, indicators, and investigation methods in the context of femicide in recent years - resulting in corrected and more complete data on historical incidences of gender-based killings. ECLAC has continued to support Latin American nations in expanding and enhancing their records and data collection on femicide rates.

Contributing factors

While data is limited, a host of cultural, economic, and political factors may contribute to the high rates of femicide and gender-based killings across Latin America.

Gender roles

Patriarchal beliefs and practices persist in many Latin American cultures. Gender relations in Latin America are influenced by an historical commitment to the cultural phenomena of machismo and marianismo. Machismo denotes aggrandized masculinity and male superiority, and prioritizes traditional conceptions of men as aggressive, dominant, and even violent towards women. Marianismo, by contrast, conceives of women and traditional femininity as domestic, inferior, self-sacrificing, and accommodating of male aggression and violence.

A candle memorial at an anti-femicide protest in Chile. The poster reads "¡Cuidado! El Machismo Mata" drawing explicit linkage between machisimo as a cultural norm and the gender-based murder of women in Latin America.

Many scholars have hypothesized that machismo and marianismo contribute directly to violence against women and femicide in Latin America. Katharine Pantaleo of the Indiana University of Pennsylvania links Latin American cultural norms of machismo and marianismo to gender-based murders of women. Pantaleo how entrenched notions of male supremacy and female inferiority contribute to a culture of gender-based violence and femicide, exemplified by the Maquiladora murders of over 370 women and girls in Ciudad Juarez.

ECLAC draws connection between gender inequality in Latin America and the persistence of femicide and other acts of violence against women. Data explicitly recording instances of machismo-motivated femicide is limited. However, in one study, the Ministerio Publico of São Paulo reported that 30% of annual femicides in São Paulo, Brazil were caused by machismo or jealousy.

Organized crime

ECLAC identifies violence and organized crime as contextual factors that contribute to femicide in Latin America. Femicides in many Latin American nations have been linked to organized crime, drug trafficking, cartel wars, and conflicts between criminal organizations and the state.

In 2020, the National Map of Femicides in Mexico reported that up to 63% of femicides recorded in March and April were linked to organized crime in some capacity. Map creator Maria Salguero has identified a series of themes in these gang-related femicides - murders targeting women who participate in organized crime, women with partners involved in criminal organizations, and symbolic killings of women to send messages to other criminal organizations or the state. According to the Women’s Coordination Unit in El Salvador, women may also be killed for rejecting the advances of gang members.

The problem of gang-related femicide is exacerbated by the culture of fear and violent retaliation surrounding organized crime and criminal governance in Latin America. Family members of victims and witnesses of femicides may refuse to cooperate with investigations into gender-related killings to avoid violent retaliation by criminal groups.

Weak justice institutions and impunity

In Latin America, only one percent of femicides are actually sentenced, with less than three percent of cases even successfully making it to prosecution. Weak and inaccessible justice systems contribute to entrenched impunity and failures of the state to convict perpetrators for gender-based killings. In many Latin American nations, police units fail to meaningfully enforce laws against violence against women - reacting with either apathy or animosity to reports of gender-based violence that can escalate into femicide. Women have reported significant rates of police officers refusing to believe reports of gender-based violence or actively retaliating with threats.

Within the legal system, conviction rates of perpetrators are low, and sentences are oftentimes inadequate. In Mexico, a woman named Rocio Mancilla was murdered by her husband, who was sentenced to less than two years in prison.

Protestors across Latin America have accused justice systems of complicity in their failures to convict perpetrators of femicide and violence against women. In El Salvador, 12 percent of recorded cases of violence against women actually involved perpetrators employed by the justice system - including judges, police officers, and lawyers.

Brazil

See also: Domestic violence in Brazil

Femicide in Brazil was recognized in 2015 after legislation was passed to increase women's protections and provide harsher punishments for perpetrators. At that time, femicide rates were the fifth highest in the world and 15 women were being murdered daily. Between 2018 and 2020, femicide numbers rose from 1,229 to 1,330 to 1,350, maintaining a proportion of 1.2 women out of 100,000 murdered on average. In Brazil, women of color are disproportionately affected by gendered crimes; Balanço Ligue 180 statistics show that 60% of women that are victims of violence are black. The percentage increases to 68.8% when looking at the rates of homicides against women. Further, the Mapa de Violencia showed that femicide rates among white women fell from 2003 to 2013 and increased for black women in this same period.

Mexico

See also: Violence against women in Mexico

Marcela Lagarde, an author and anthropologist, makes the distinction between "femicidio" and "feminicidio", two culminations of the term femicide as described by Diana Russell. The former is described as a translation of femicide as defined by Russell and the latter described the social and legal systems that perpetuate femicides (e.g., misogynist judges, poor application of the law, and anti-feminist politicians). Dr. Julia Monarrez Fragoso describes on aspect of how systems impact femicide in her analysis of femicides in Ciudad Juarez between 1993 and 2005. The data that her analysis is constructed on lacks preciseness in the exact number of women killed and the motivations behind their murders. The first reliably documented case of femicide in Mexico goes back to January 1993, with the murder of Alma Chavira Farel.

Ciudad Juarez, Chihuahua

See also: Femicides in Ciudad Juárez

Femicide in Ciudad Juarez has promulgated femicide into Mexican political discussion since 1993. Of the 442 homicides against women that occurred between 1993 and 2005, a majority of the victims were between the age of 10 and 29 (54.1%). Additionally, 26.5% of these victims were below the age of 18. 1995 saw the most homicides throughout this time with 49 women killed. Of the 442 women killed, 301 have been femicides, where 126 were committed by an intimate partner, 150 were committed by men who clearly used misogyny or sexism and sexually or physically abused the victim, and 25 were killed doing a "stigmatized" occupation like sex work.

Of the women that died to an intimate partner, 22 of the perpetrators committed the femicide out of jealousy and 17 committed femicide during an argument. However, 24 of the intimate partner cases have no conclusive evidence for cause. In the cases where a minor was murdered, 8 of the victims showed signs of abuse, 5 were killed for crying, and 5 victims had no conclusive motivation behind the murder. Of the 25 women who were killed doing a stigmatized occupation, 5 victims were killed because of relationship problems, 4 were killed so the perpetrator could avoid paying, and 11 were killed with no conclusive motivation. Out of 38 systemic femicides, 5 victims were killed out of jealousy, 5 were killed while intoxicated, and 20 show no conclusive motivation.

Femicide after being legally distinguished in Mexico

Femicide was distinguished as its own crime under federal Mexican law on June 14, 2012. It would not be until 2015, three years after femicide was distinguished under Mexican Penal Code, that the Mexican Supreme Court would establish that each violent murder of a woman would be investigated as a femicide, until there is evidence to show otherwise. Between 2012 and 2017, there were 12,796 homicide victims that were female. However, only 22% of the investigations around these crimes began with the suspicion of femicide. 70% of the victims were murdered in a public sphere. Around 40% of these cases had victims between the ages of 21 and 30. According to ONU Mujeres, case numbers decreased from 2012 to 2015 and increased from 2015 to 2017. In fact, according to the "Secretariado Ejecutivo del Sistema Nacional de Seguridad Pública" (SESNSP, translates to "Executive Secretariat of the National Public Security System"), both femicides and the homicide against women has been increasing since 2015. Since the start of 2021 to May 2021, femicide cases rose by 7.1%, which makes up for 423 women.

In the media

Multiple films have highlighted the prevalence of femicide in Latin America. "Three Deaths of Marisela Escobedo" tells the story of Marisela Escobedo Ortiz and her fight to hold the perpetrator accountable for the femicide of her daughter, and "Feminicido en Latino America", explores the negative externalities associated with femicide across the region.