Mexico registers wave of femicides in 2021, 2.66% more than 2020

The 1,004 femicides registered in Mexico in 2021, a 2.66% more than in 2020, reflect the pressing sexist violence in a country criticized for not addressing the insecurity suffered by women and for a high impunity in most crimes.

“It is a desperate situation. I don’t know what else has to happen, because everything we’ve been through has been appalling,” Patricia Olamendi, a doctor of law, lawyer and activist, told Efe on Friday. She assured that, after 40 years in the feminist movement, she had never felt such distance from the government. .

According to data presented on Thursday by the Executive Secretariat of the National Public Security System, Mexico registered 1,004 femicides in 2021 and 978 femicides in 2020.

In 2019, Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s first full year in office, the number of femicides was 973.

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And in fact, the more than 1,000 cases in 2021 represent the highest figure since records began in 2015, when 427 femicides, gender-based murders of women, were reported.

violence figures

violence against women it has grown in other types of crimes.For example, cases of family violence have also been on the rise with a record number of complaints for this crime of 23,909 last May, which is attributed in part to the confinement caused by the coronavirus pandemic.

Too rapes increased by 28.1% between 2020 and 2021, with 21,189 cases, another reflection of brutal sexist violence.

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In this way, the data testifies to a continued growth since 2015, when the data began to be collected.

A growth that is reflected in multiple cases taken up by the media and causing marches and rallies -increasingly massive- that denounce the weariness of a society in which more than 10 women are murdered every day.

And the unknown cases?

And although the official figures grow, A dark figure of women who do not report aggression is left outs and, above all, of violent homicides not classified as femicides that, if taken into account, would give an even greater dimension to the problem, according to analysts.

“We do not believe that these figures are real because the states decide what they classify as femicides”, underlined Olamendi, who explained that the data collected by the Executive Secretariat is what the states send them.

And each state -through its Police and Public Ministries- decides which homicides are classified as femicides, he continued.

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“Why not make a public policy that obliges the Prosecutor’s Offices to indicate to their Public Ministries that All intentional homicide should be classified with a gender perspective And so they classify it as femicide?” Blanca Ivonne Olvera, a researcher at the National Institute of Criminal Sciences and a professor at the Faculty of Law at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM), asked in an interview with Efe.

But so far there has been no answer to this question, since the dialogue between the authorities and civil organizations has been diminishing since the beginning of the government of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador in December 2018, the experts considered.

And the budget allocated to entities such as the National Institute for Women (Inmujeres) has also been reduced, which, Olamendi said, has been losing budget to the point of not even being functional.

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Similarly, the increase in the numbers of femicides has not been matched by an increase in the number of justice officials in the country.

“If there are more crimes there should be more police, more Public Ministries and more judges. Well, it turns out not, and with the same ones we had 10 years ago There is more crime”, shared Olvera, who in the past worked as a federal police officer and in the Public Ministry.

Superficial policies that do not deepen the problem

This lack of action in the face of the evident increase in femicides is related to the lack of precision in the official discourse, which, the experts accused, is made up of an accumulation of abstract goals and critiques of feminists, which he accuses of going against the transforming movement of López Obrador.

“You tell me that you are working strong and hard but you do not tell me what actions you are doing,” said Olvera, who explained that this happens both with the federal government and with state authorities.

“They are moving forward on some policies but again they are not understanding the underlying problem”, Blanca Juárez, a feminist journalist and member of the Politically Incorrect network, shared with Efe.

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Juárez considered that the current government focuses its discourse on feminists being enemies and its efforts are focused on solving “causes such as corruption and poverty”.

But they forget the depth of the patriarchy in Mexico and even allow them to be part of its ranks men accused of harassment or rapeJuarez lamented.

This is due to recent cases such as that of the intellectual Pedro Salmerón, accused of sexual abuse and recently appointed Mexico’s ambassador to Panama.

“That speaks of the appreciation and respect that this government has for women. There is a total abandonment“Olamendi concluded. (I)