Report: 2019 most violent year on record for women in Mexico

“This is not violence perpetrated by Chapo Guzman and high-profile drug traffickers. This is widespread, societal violence targeting women and domestic violence.” DAVID SHIRK DIRECTOR, JUSTICE IN MEXICO PROGRAM

Murders of women because of their gender increased in Mexico by 130 percent from 2015 through 2019, according to a new report by the University of San Diego research group Justice in Mexico.

The number of women nationwide who were victims of violent crime in 2019 saw a 2.5 percent increase from 2018 numbers to a record 74,632 victims, according the report.

High-profile cases and growing attention to systemic violence against women in Mexico prompted nationwide strikes in early 2020.

The movement led a team of USDbased researchers to include a new section on gender-motivated violence in their annual report Organized Crime and Violence in Mexico.

Nearly half of all women in Mexico report having been victims of relationship violence, according to the report based on a 2018 survey by the country’s National System of Statistical Information and Geography.

Co-author David Shirk, a USD professor and director of the Justice in Mexico program, said some of the increases may be attributed to women feeling more confident in reporting violence after the national movement aimed at holding abusers accountable.

“This is not violence perpetrated by Chapo Guzman and high-profile drug traffickers,” said Shirk. “This is widespread, societal violence targeting women and domestic violence.”

Researchers also found the overall rate of violent crime in the country has not slowed amid the COVID-19 global pandemic, with numbers from the first half of 2020 on track to meet 2019 record-high levels of violent crime.

The defining statistic of violent crime in Mexico, the homicide rate, rose to its highest recorded level ever in 2019 with 34,588 victims killed.

Tijuana was top among five “hot spots” or areas identified with high concentrations of murders. The border city registered more than 2,100 murders in 2019.

“A significant share are related to organized crime,” said Shirk. He said 44 to 80 percent of overall homicides can be attributed to organized crime groups.

There is some good news. The rate at which homicides have increased yearto-year has started to slow, said Shirk.

“The violence has sort of stabilized at a very high level,” he said.

Homicide remains the leading cause of death among Mexico’s young people aged 15 to 39, the report states.