Femicide is defined as a sex-based hate crime, “the intentional killing of females because they are females” Every year, about 66,000 women are killed violently across the globe. Mexico has been experiencing a crisis of femicides. The rate has more than doubled with 3580 women being killed in 2018. Fresh outrage has been sparked in Mexico by the brutal murder this month of Ingrid Escamilla, 25, who was found stabbed to death and partially skinned and by the disappearance of 7-year old Fátima Cecilia Aldrighett Antón on Feb. 11 in the Mexico City neighborhood of Xochimilco, where she was waiting to be picked up from school. Four days later, her body was found naked in a plastic bag. These crimes sparked a wave of protests in Mexico City, and feminists have accused President Andrés Manuel López Obrador of brushing them off. The Washington Post reports that in the midst of a fundraising campaign linked to the sale of the presidential plane, Obrador chastised a reporter who asked him about the attacks on women: “I don’t want femicides to distract from the raffle.” Last week protestors painted “femicide state” on the walls of the national palace. They accuse authorities of doing nothing to investigate or punish the perpetrators of violence against women. In Mexico’s National Congress, the opposition National Action Party proposed creating a special committee for femicides, claiming a “state of national emergency.” Josefina Vázquez Mota, president of the Senate Committee on Children and Adolescents, said data from Mexico’s Children’s Rights Network shows seven girls and boys disappear in the country every day. Police have also been implicated in recent crimes of rape against women. Mexico’s city first female mayor is urging action. Latin America has some of the world’s highest rates of femicide in part because gang violence is so high overall. But yet these same countries have declarations against femicide on the books but do not enforce them. Some say the issue lies with how the term is defined. In Chile and Nicaragua, a crime is not femicide if the perpetrator did not know the victim. Mexico does not define femicide, allowing many murders to go unclassified, making it difficult to gather reliable statistical data on rates of gender violence. Honduras and El Salvador have the highest murder rates for women in the world, and a key reason is the control by drug traffickers of much of the country. Patriarchal values that view rape and interpartner violence as justified or that favor the rights of men to control women also make enforcement of laws difficult.
Feminists argue that it is important to label these crimes “femicide” to illustrate the seriousness of violence against women and to call attention to the gender issue. Just listing them as murders obscures that women are the victims the majority of the time and inhibits the push for change. What do you think; is the term important, and what can be done to stop femicides like those in Mexico?
I feel that there isn’t really a need for the term femicide, while the murder of women is a crime and to be done specifically because someone is a woman could be considered a hate crime, there are a lot of murders of all genders that do not have a special term- murder is murder. I’m not trying to be insensitive because this is a huge issue, but from a criminal justice perspective a special classification will not change anything- the change must come from the serious lack of law enforcement in these areas. I do think there should be events to raise awareness just like there should be for all serious crimes like this- but to coin the term femicide would be to open a whole can of worms for all other sects of people who are murdered like men, the LGBTQ+ community, and children (not infants).
In order for these crimes to be stopped (or at least deterred), there needs to be a serious reform with Mexican police and the powers that be. Through that reform and the cracking down, that would help thin the active number of murderers in Mexico- and through the punishment they receive, there would a general deterrence against other potential offenders. There could even be attempts to educate men on violence against women, like the seminars in Cambodia for sex traffickers.
I don’t think there is a need for the term, because murder is a constant in this world. If the term Femicides was to catch on, then we would need Menicides, and new terms to represent others who are murdered every year. I do believe that President Andrés Manuel López Obrador shouldn’t have brushed the increase of female homicides. The opposition National Action Party proposing the special committee to forward the message that these femicides are a “state of national emergency” is a bit much. This shows that the opponent is willing to lead the citizens on by this creation just to win a vote. I find this undermining and wrong. A step in the right direction would be to regroup the Mexican police with officers that are ready to crack down and take the job seriously.