‘In Colombia, a feminicide is committed every 18 hours’

This week, extreme violence against women claimed two new victims in Bogotá.
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(Also read: Feminicides in Colombia: Government signed law that eliminates penal benefits; feminicides will not have a house in prison).

In an interview with Yamid Amat, the director of Transitional Justice of the Ministry of Justice, Mariana Ardila Trujilloand Linda Cabreralawyer for the Sisma Mujer Corporation, talk about feminicide and the impressive figures of this crime in Colombia.

‘There are worrying figures on gender violence’

Digital?

When women express their opinions on social networks, they are attacked for their opinions with sexist insults, threats of rape, threats even against their lives, for example, or threats that in the digital environment, what is colloquially called revenge porn, is an exhibition of photos, intimate videos of women without their consent. These, for example, are cases of digital violence. But there is also violence, of course, sexual, violence within the family in the context of relationships, violence, of course, in the context of conflict.

But is there gender violence in Colombia?

There are an alarming number of cases of violence. For example, the figures there are, according to data from the Prosecutor’s Office, between 2020 and 2023, a feminicide is committed every 18 hours. A feminicide every 18 hours! Femicide is the death of a woman because of being a woman. During the year 2023 there were almost 450 femicides.

Four hundred and fifty women murdered for being women…

For the fact of being a woman. The Attorney General’s Office has data according to which, as of May 30, 90 femicides have been known this year alone. Ninety women murdered for being women. And we are not talking about areas of armed conflict, but about cities.

They are not sure. Because?

The data on access to justice is very worrying, because reviewing data from the Prosecutor’s Office and the Superior Council of the Judiciary, sexual crimes and domestic violence crimes occupy the first places among the numbers of cases they receive. But 70% of these cases remain in investigative stages, they do not reach trial. Only approximately 20% reach trial, and 5% actually serve the custodial sentence. The aggressors feel that there are no consequences and the victims feel that they are not compensated and do not trust in justice.
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(Continue reading: Femicide in the Valley: romantic partner and brother-in-law of the victim, alleged aggressors).

Those two things are happening now. Do bullies feel that they are not punished?

No, in the majority of cases. Even though we have laws that criminalize feminicide. Also laws like the one that was sanctioned on Friday by the President, which toughens and limits the benefits for feminicides, so that, for example, they do not have house arrest.

Is there too much impunity in cases of feminicide?

Only approximately 30% reach the trial stage.

Is the purpose to include in the justice reform project some type of measures to confront feminicide?

One of the pillars of justice reform from the beginning was how justice can be brought closer to citizens, including women.

How would you define the current situation of women in Colombia?

Women in Colombia face all kinds of difficulties…

Yes. Psychological violence, economic violence, physical violence, sexual violence, intimate partner violence. We must do something as a State, as a Government and as a justice sector to protect women.

The current situation of women in Colombia is one of helplessness…

Of inequality, at least. Obviously, we still do not live in an egalitarian society.

Wouldn’t you have wanted to be born a man?

I think the issue is that, regardless of the sex or gender we are born with, what matters is having the same opportunities and having the same real rights.

Is violence against women very high in Colombia?

How many femicides have occurred this year?

Ninety femicides that the Attorney General’s Office reports this year.

Are they going to include that in the reform?

Yes. It will be included in the reform. In Colombia there are worrying figures on gender violence. For example, every 33 minutes a woman is a victim of domestic violence.

Is the State fulfilling its duty to protect women?

You are not doing it satisfactorily. We are missing a lot and that is what a justice reform should have as its fundamental pillars. Because women are more than half of the population.

‘It is contempt for women’s lives’

What relationship does it have with the United Nations?

And what do they have to do with feminicide in the country?

We represent women who are victims of domestic violence or who are at risk of feminicide in court.

What is feminicide?

Femicide is the murder of a woman because she is a woman.

Not necessarily partners or husbands?

No. That is intimate feminicide, that is what it is called conceptually. But there are other types of femicides, such as sexual one, and there is a feminicide due to prostitution.

But how many types of femicides are there?

Isn’t it his partner or his wife?

Not necessarily.

Is that a disease?

No, no, it is machismo, but above all it is contempt for the lives of women. In other words, it is a scenario of clearly established power relations. Men consider women to be inferior and if they do not follow their orders, they will be sanctioned or punished.

How are they punished?

With threats, with murders, with any expression of patriarchy. Look, culturally it is said that women do not get over breakups. That’s what society believes. And look, intimate femicides are proof that the opposite is true. Those who don’t get over breakups are men, not women. If not, the world would have already become extinct. If we murdered, that would have already extinguished humanity.

And in Colombia is there feminicide?

In Colombia there are femicides, of course, every 18 hours there is a feminicide.

Every 18 hours?

Is feminicide a crime?

Femicide has been an autonomous crime since 2015, but it was never applied. And this law talks about prevention, that when women warn that they are at risk, the State must arrive in a timely manner. So the problem of feminicide is not just the aggressors, that is part of the problem. Where is the State? When the woman says I am at risk, they are going to kill me, where is the State? There is none, because the institutions do not work for us. This week my organization achieved a very important ruling and that is that the contentious administrative justice system ruled in favor of a demand for direct reparation. He condemned the State for a femicide that we represented. We represented this woman. We told the State: ‘they are going to kill her; Protect her, help her, she is at risk of feminicide.’ And they killed her.

Who was?

It was a case from Cauca. And they killed her. Her husband. There was no State. In Colombia, a woman is killed every 13 hours and the State does nothing.

Despite the complaints?

Despite the complaints, the requests for protection measures. In general, intimate feminicide, which is the most frequent, generally always has a history of violence behind it. It always begins with an escalation of violence. First abuse, then beatings, then sexual violence and it goes up, until murder comes. If the State arrives in time, it can prevent them. That doesn’t happen with other crimes. In feminicide, you know who they are going to kill, you know who is going to kill you and you know when they are going to kill you. Because the peak of risk is when the woman can no longer resist and leaves. She separated. At that moment her death is more than diagnosed. The State knows it.

And what do women do to defend themselves in Colombia?

They can go to family police stations, which are weak. Without money. Without power.

Does the State do absolutely nothing to defend them?

It is not efficient in protecting women. One in three women is a victim of gender violence.

One in three? Gender violence…

Gender violence and because there is a patriarchal system that generates men having greater power, greater access to resources. There is a large number of sons and daughters of victims of feminicide who today are in a situation of total helplessness. And in the face of that there is no law, there is no procedure, there is nothing, nothing. There is nothing that makes this historical debt that society has to care for those orphans of victims of feminicide, there is nothing.

In Colombia, there is no gender equality or rights between men and women?

In law yes and in reality no. Women have to take care of security and protection for ourselves, because there is no State that protects and guarantees the life of a woman. And in the home the violence is highest. Every 12 minutes there is a woman beaten in domestic violence. Every 12 minutes. A girl or woman is a victim of sexual violence every 13 days.

Are they whose figures?

Of Legal Medicine. The figures I give are official. The general situation of women is unequal.

YAMID AMAT
Special for EL TIEMPO