Murders of women rise sharply as drug war intensifies
MEXICO - The number of women being murdered in Mexico has risen sharply over the last decade amid the country’s drug war, more than wiping out two decades of gains when the rate fell by half, a new study shows.
The report from Mexico’s interior department, the country’s National Women’s Institute and the UN Women agency said the annual femicide rate was 3.8 per 100,000 women in 1985 before it began a steady decline to 1.9 in 2007. From there it rose sharply to peak at 4.6 per 100,000 in 2012, tapering off in the following years and then rising again last year to 4.4. Of the 52,210 killings of women recorded over the 32-year period, nearly a third took place in the last six years, the report said. The rise in such killings coincided with Mexico’s militarized offensive against drug cartels launched in late 2006 by thenpresident Felipe Calderón. It also roughly tracks overall homicide trends during the About 12% of homicide victims in Mexico last year were women, compared with about 10% in 1985. That was down slightly from the early and mid-2000s. “Violence against women and girls which can result in death is perpetrated, in most cases, to conserve and reproduce the submission and subordination of them derived from relationships of power,” the report said. The tiny state of Colima registered the country’s highest femicide rate in 2016, with 16.3 per 100,000. It was followed by the states of Guerrero, Zacatecas, Chihuahua and Morelos.
For sheer numbers, the highest for a single state was 421 in the state of Mexico, which surrounds the capital on three sides and is the country’s most populous state. Most of those are states with a heavy presence of organized crime gangs. Guerrero, in particular, is a hotspot of cartel violence. The Pacific coast resort city of Acapulco in Guerrero registered more killings of women last year than any other municipality, with 107. The study also noted an increase in recent years of murders of women outside the home, “which probably is related to the increase in organized crime activities”. Last year 41% of murders of women happened outside the home. (Theguardian.com)