Photo by xZad | CC BY 2.0
In Mexico, from 2012 to 2015, 10,010 women were murdered–seven a day, according to data from the National Health Information System (Sinais). But who are these women who were assassinated and what were the circumstances of the crime? Today, health statistics allow us to look at what’s happening on both the national and the state levels.
In 2017, the defense of women’s rights in Mexico marks two important anniversaries: 10 years ago the General Law on Women’s Access to a Life Free of Violence (LGAMVLV) was enacted and entered into force, and it has been five years since the Federal Penal Code incorporated the crime of feminicide, defined as the murder of a woman for gender reasons, that is, for being a woman.
Although both regulations sought to modify public policies aimed at guaranteeing a life free of violence for women and girls and to improve the access to and delivery of justice for victims of gender violence, this has not been achieved in the country.
Law enforcement institutions throughout the country have not adopted the procedures for declaring femicides, nor the protocols for conducting investigations. The majority of murders of women continue to be investigated as homicides and those responsible are charged for this type of criminal offense. Moreover, state courts were omitted from the application of the ruling on femicide issued by the Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation, which is seen as “an input, not an…