The Drug-War Femicides

Barcelona - The number of women murdered is increasing in most of Central America and Mexico. In some countries, such as Honduras, the increase is four times that of men. Moreover, many of these murders are committed with extreme violence – sexual savagery, torture, and mutilations – by perpetrators (often involved in organized crime) acting with a high degree of impunity.

In countries like Chile, Argentina, and Costa Rica, where overall levels of violence are lower, the murders of women are usually committed with less violence, by partners or ex-partners in the context of “domestic abuse.”

In Latin America, all of these crimes are known as “femicides”: murders of women precisely for being women. Cases associated with domestic violence are treated leniently by courts; in some countries, jealousy or the absence of previous convictions can reduce the punishment. Those committed by strangers, often with intense cruelty – and often linked to organized-crime groups such as the Central American maras – rarely end up in court at all.

But the reality of Latin America in recent years shows some crossover between these categories. Brutal murders of women also occur in countries such as Argentina, where a surprising number of women have been burned by their partners or ex-partners. In Mexico, women have been murdered by hit men, hired by their husbands or partners to make the killing look like the work of organized crime. And, in Central American countries, women are murdered by criminal groups as a kind of threat or message to their husbands or partners.

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