In the face of crimes against women, there is only community support, feminists say

In the first 30 days of 2020, at least 6 women have been killed. To this must be added the 63 femicides that occurred in 2019 and that are part of the 647 cases registered in the last 10 years.

Currently, a very high level of insecurity for women is perceived in the country after recent cases of kidnappings, rapes, assaults, and murders.

Faced with this situation and the lack of effectiveness of the complaint, the activist and defender of women’s rights, Mirna Blandón, says that civil society must “embody women, accompany them, protect them, advise them”.

For her part, Eveling Flores of the Women’s Network Against Violence (RMCV) says that “we know that it is the State’s responsibility to guarantee the life of its citizens, but lately they are not doing it, because the officials are working more as partisan operators than as public officials.”

According to Flores, given the lack of commitment on the part of the State to attend to femicides, the best thing that women can do is to organize, meet with their neighbors and relatives “in order to define a plan and see how they will act in the face of violence”.

Femicide in Nicaragua is recognized only among couples

Last year, the National Police acknowledged that in Nicaragua there were barely 23 femicides, 50 less than those reported by the Catholic Observatory for the Right to Decide.

This discrepancy of figures occurs because Law 779 Ley Integral Contra la Violencia Hacia las Mujeres (Comprehensive Law Against Violence Towards Women), amended in 2012, now femicide is only recognized when it happens between couples or in the private sphere, a modification widely questioned by feminist activists.

“When they say it is in the private space, women are limited to asking the community for help,” explains Blandón. In addition, the problem with this typification is that violence and murders against women “do not occur only at home, also occurs in the street” and even by strangers.

Blandón says that given the current situation of violence, campaigns against violence against women must be carried out from the Ministry of Education or the media.

“The State is not committed. It believes that this is to prepare a document and then leave it,” questioned Flores.

Translated from the article “Ante ola de crímenes contra mujeres, solo queda respaldo de comunidad, dicen feministas” published at Nicaraguainvestiga.com. Read the original here.