ARGENTINA-FEMICIDE One woman killed in Argentina every 31 hours, says local rights group

Record ID: 149979

  • Title: ARGENTINA-FEMICIDE One woman killed in Argentina every 31 hours, says local rights group
  • Date: 2nd June 2015
  • Summary: SALTA, ARGENTINA (FILE) (REUTERS) VARIOUS OF POLICE AT CRIME SCENE VARIOUS OF TRANSPORTATION OF BODIES OF MURDERED FRENCH TOURISTS TO FUNERAL HOME
  • Embargoed: 17th June 2015 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Argentina
  • Country: Argentina
  • Topics: General
  • Reuters ID: LVA5FF1SGUO84P06WCU32DHOX73H
  • Aspect Ratio: 16:9
  • Story Text: EDITORS PLEASE NOTE: THIS MATERIAL THAT WAS ORIGINALLY 4:3
    According to the local women's rights group, Casa del Encuentro Argentina reported an alarming 277 femicides - the killing of a woman by a man because of her gender - last year alone.
    Since there are no official statistics about violence against women in the country the organisation gathers data based on daily media reports.
    Ada Beatriz Rico, president of Casa del Encuentro, explained how the data shows that approximately one woman is killed every 31 hours in Argentina and that the actual figure is likely much higher.
    "If we do an average of these years [of gathering data] we find that a woman is killed due to gender-based violence every 31 hours in our country. That is to say, every 31 hours boys and girls are left without their mother. It is a truly alarming statistic and we are sure that the figure is even higher because there are places where women are murdered and where it is not covered by the media, as it can be in rural areas. So those murders are invisible. That's why official statistics are necessary so that there is a cross-reference of data between complaints, hospitals, police stations, so that we can truly have a real scope of how many women are murdered and create public policies that protect the victims [of gender-based violence]," she said.
    According to the organisation, there have been 1,808 femicides since 2008 and the problem shows little sign of abating.
    Corina Fernandez survived to tell her tale.
    In 2010 her ex husband shot her three times at the entrance of her children's school.
    Two of the bullets remain lodged in her lungs.
    She explained how she reported his ongoing abuse to authorities more than 80 times without result, a common problem in Argentina where cases of domestic abuse are often treated as 'private matters' due to a 'macho' culture which tends to blame women for the violence inflicted on them and to condone it.
    "My life took an unexpected turn, because the truth is that I survived for this, because it is my mission in life to be able to help women who are going through what I went through, from the position I was in. I know what fear is, I know what helplessness is, I know what it is like to be within the circle of violence of which one cannot escape, I know what it is to be threatened, harassed, persecuted. I remember also that I made 80 police complaints before I was shot - I spoke out, I reported him, it was almost a death foretold and no one protected me, which is also something to keep in mind, that is to say, this cannot continue happening because more than one woman, today we are facing what is almost an epidemic of femicides and many of them had reported it [the abuse to authorities]," said Fernandez.
    Many Argentines, outraged by the deplorable number of femicides in the country, have started to take action and demand that the state takes a bigger stance in protecting women from gender-based violence.
    'Ni Una Menos', meaning not one more victim, is the name of the campaign calling for an end to femicide and gender-based violence, official statistics on violence against women, as well as the implementation of a Law 26,485 a law which aims to protect victims of abuse and prevent violence that was passed six years but has yet to be implemented.
    On Wednesday (June 3) demonstrations organised by the Ni Una Menos campaign will be held throughout Argentina.
    Nadia Taddei's sister Wanda was a victim of femicide. In a fit of rage Wanda's husband lit her on fire, burning more than 80 percent of her body. She died from the burns 20 days later.
    "We realised that she completely stopped being herself. She was a person, as you said, that worked, was independent, coming and going, she had her car and when she started going out with him she stopped working, sold her business, gave her car to him and didn't go out. Before [she met husband] she dressed well to go to work and after [she started the relationship] she was in the house the whole day. So I think the person who suffers some kind of violence always finds some kind of justification for it…something is going on with him, I must do such and such ... and in this justification something very serious can occur, which is death. Like my sister, who is dead," she said.
    One of many horrific cases that regularly make headlines in the South American country, the recent discovery of a pregnant schoolgirl's body under the patio of her boyfriend's family home in northeast Argentina led local rights groups to condemn her killing as a femicide and raise awareness.
    Fabiana Tunez, director of Casa del Encuentro, explained how violence against women sustains structural inequalities in the country.
    "In reality when we talk about the characteristics of male aggressors they have to do with conduct learned primarily from culture, fundamentally because they need to exercise control, dominance, isolation, possession as a form of maintaining their power. They are structural inequalities that still exist between men and women where violence is the determining factor that sustains them [the structures of inequality]," she said.
    Femicide in Argentina's made international headlines in 2011 when two French tourists where brutally raped and murdered while hiking near the northern city of Salta. In 2014 one man was sentenced to 30 years in prison who his involvement in the crime while two other were acquitted due to an alleged lack of evidence.
    Femicide is a widespread and growing problem across Latin America, which has the highest femicide rates in the world, the agency United Nations Women says.
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