Lidia Murillo lived in Yoro, a municipality in northern Honduras, and he earned his living by running an alcoholic beverage business. Her relatives lost track of her and reported her missing on April 12.
A week later, on April 20, the discovery of his body was appalling: Lidia was found decapitated and dismembered in a municipal pasture, to where his relatives went to recognize the body.
Lidia’s is just one of the femicides reported by Honduras so far in 2023. According to figures from the Honduran NGO Center for Women’s Rights (CDM), Between January and April of this year, a total of 121 women have been murdered, which is equivalent to a violent death every 21 hours in a country of only 9.7 million inhabitants.
The scenario, however, is not new. Since 2021, ECLAC’s Gender Equality Observatory for Latin America and the Caribbean has been locating Honduras as the country with the highest rate of femicide in the region, with a rate of 4.6 femicides per 100,000 women; while the figures from the National Human Rights Commissioner of Honduras (Conadeh) speak of 7,583 violent deaths of women between 2002 and February 2023.
Just last year, the Women’s Rights Center reported 390 violent deaths of women, representing a femicide rate of 7.9 per 100,000 women.
(Also read: ‘If a woman kills another for the fact of being a woman, it should also be femicide’)
The figures speak of 7,583 violent deaths of women between 2002 and February 2023.
The security crisis
This NGO attributes the recent wave of femicides to a series of factors. For example, the fact that Honduras is still a traditionally male-dominated country and still has high homicide rates, with a current average of 10-13 deaths per day.
According to the CDM report ‘Violence against women in Honduras’, “the situation of violence due to drug trafficking and organized crime, lack of state protection and its lack of action in the construction of comprehensive public policies that are respectful of human rights and, on the other hand, patriarchal culture are killing women” in that country.
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Drug trafficking and organized crime and, on the other hand, the patriarchal culture are killing women
The situation of gender violence in that Central American nation is such that they are already 12,831 complaints of domestic violence between January and April 2023, to which are added the around 270 disappearances of women, girls and adolescents that, according to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR), would have occurred in Honduras in 2022.
“The high rates of murders of women and femicides, LGBTI people and human rights defenders are alarming. It is also concerning that, in this context characterized by violence and the presence of criminal structures in a large part of the country, thousands of girls, boys, and adolescents are victims of various forms of violence, including sexual violence,” the IACHR denounced after a visit to the country in April.
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Dozens of women participate in a mobilization to commemorate the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women, in Tegucigalpa (Honduras).
EFE/ Gustavo Amador
And despite the fact that the coming to power of Xiomara Casto, the first woman president of Honduras in its history, filled women with expectations since Castro herself promised a public policy with a gender perspective and promised to implement strategies to prevent and address gender-based violence, a year and a half after becoming president, that hope seems to have faded.
“The arrival of the government of Xiomara Castro, a year ago, represented a historic opportunity to change the course of the country and put human rights at the center, but the change has not been enough to address the serious crisis faced by the population in Honduras”, said some time ago Erika Guevara Rosas, director for the Americas at Amnesty International.
(Also: Do you feel unsafe in your country? Spiral of violence threatens Latin America)
He says that the violent deaths of women are investigated, but the reality is different
Migdonia Ayestas, director of the Violence Observatory of the National Autonomous University of Honduras (Unah), agrees with this, who told efe that the actions of the president have been insufficient in terms of gender.
“We have a political bet from the president where she establishes that women are not alone, but at the time of death they are alone. We have a political bet and a speech where she says that the violent deaths of women are investigated, but the reality is different “laments Ayestas.
Impunity in 95 percent of cases
The problem, according to complaints from social organizations, continues to be the impunity and the lack of public policies focused on prevention of the types of violence against women.
According to Conadeh figures, 95 percent of the violent deaths of women that have occurred since 2002 have gone unpunished. Only in 2022, according to CDM reports, in 191 of the 395 femicides the relationship of the aggressor with the victim is unknown and in 88 of the cases the age of the victim is not even known, which accounts for the lack of investigation around the murders.
“There is little investigation of these cases, most remain without investigation and prosecution (…). As long as many cases are not prosecuted, then definitely We are facing a State that allows sexist violence to continue to occur in the country”, says Ayestas to the agency Eph.
(Keep reading: Beatriz vs. El Salvador: ‘Banning abortion leaves women vulnerable’)
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President of Honduras, Xiomara Castro.
EFE / Welcome Velasco
Added to impunity is the lack of a gender perspective in the judicial sector. According to the CDM, Of the 390 deaths reported in 2022, only 17 were classified as femicides by the Public Ministry, that is, only 4 percent.while the analysis of the Women’s Human Rights Observatory indicates that 46 percent of these deaths, and even more, qualified as femicides.
“The Public Ministry does not take into account the unequal relationship between men and women, the gender perspective in the registration of complaints and in the investigation process, and classifies most of the cases as homicides, a crime that is punishable by a sentence minor”, denounces the NGO.
For this reason, the human rights defender, Honorina Rodríguez, told efe that the Public Ministry and the Supreme Court of Justice of Honduras “must change the ways in which they are dealing with violence against women” and, in addition, “urgently” strengthen the Specialized Unit for the Investigation of the Death of Women.
In his opinion, the fault lies in the lack of political will, in the low budget for research and in the lack of campaigns to put an end to sexist violence.
(Keep reading: It would take Latin America 67 years to reach gender parity)
This is a cultural issue that must be “given priority
The Honduran State must “worry” about the violent death of a woman every day in the country, since it is a “cultural matter” that must be “given priority” to establish public policies aimed at preventing these murders, requested the Director of the Violence Observatory of the National Autonomous University of Honduras.
The CDM, for its part, demands a public policy “in favor of life and justice”, demands respectful processes for the victims and their families and calls for a comprehensive strategy to reduce the high levels of violence against women in Honduras.
The gender crisis in Honduras, in figures
According to the monitoring of femicide by the Honduran NGO, the majority of women murdered in Honduras in 2022 ranged from 20 to 29 years old (94 deaths), 30 to 39 years old (59 deaths) and 10 to 19 years old. (43 deaths).
⚠️ ATTENTION! ⚠️
🔴22 women were violently murdered during the month of April, reaching a total of 121 femicides in the first four months of 2023. pic.twitter.com/tdPpAE2eCN
— CDM (@CDMHonduras) May 18, 2023
Last year, moreover, 169 women were killed with firearms and 38 with knives. They were also victims of chemical weapons, incendiary weapons, among others.
In 2022, 33 percent of the deaths were undetermined femicides, 26 percent of them were femicides due to organized crime, 22 percent cases of intimate femicide, 9 percent due to intrafamily violence, and 4 percent due to sexual violence.
The regional panorama
The situation in other Latin American countries is no better. According to the ECLAC Gender Observatory, in 2021 at least 4,473 women were murdered in 29 Latin American countries.
In Colombia, for example, there were 619 femicides in 2022 and There are already 133 so far in 2023, that is, one every 28 hours, according to figures from the Colombian Femicide Observatory.
In Mexico, only in the first three months of the year there were 220 cases of femicides and the average since 2018 is 10 women murdered per day.
Argentina also ended 2022 with a worrying figure of 252 women murdered, that is, one every 35 hours. And during the first four months of 2023, that nation has 116 victims of sexist violence.
ANGIE NATALY RUIZ HURTADO
INTERNATIONAL WRITING
TIME
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