Why does Colombia continue to lose the battle against feminicide and other serious crimes against women?

The Attorney General’s Office warns that so far this year, and with a cutoff of 31 As of May, 90 women have been victims of feminicide, that is, they have been murdered for being women: among the victims there are eight transgender women –who recognize themselves with a gender identity different from their biological sex–.

Precisely during the accountability of the Attorney General’s Office, last Thursday, the head of that entity, Margarita Cabello warned that 18 women per month this year “have been murdered.” presumably by their romantic partners or ex-partners, that means that 4 women have died a week due to problems related to family life. “This cannot continue to happen.”

The Attorney He also highlighted that the knife continues to be the object most used by the perpetrator to commit the attacks, since this type of element was used in 39 of the cases reported this year.

The situation in departments like Santander has set off alarms. The NGO Mujer y Futuro reports that to date there have been 8 cases of feminicide. In several of the cases, the victims had warned about domestic violence, and their crimes were recorded while they waited to receive the care necessary to avoid the tragedy.

One of the most memorable cases in that department occurred at the beginning of the year and was that of a two-year-old girl who was allegedly sexually abused by her stepfather while her mother was working. The minor died and her stepfather was charged with the crime of aggravated femicide, even though he had alleged that the girl had fallen down some stairs.

This case joins others registered in the rest of the country that has the authorities on alert.

Statistics show that in 2023, The Public Ministry counted 525 femicides and the Peace and Reconciliation Foundation reported 630.

Viviana Mora Verbel, deputy attorney general, revealed that in 63% of the cases Reported this year, the alleged aggressors have been romantic partners or ex-partners and in four of the cases they have been other family members. “What does that mean? The situations have been occurring in the family nucleus, to a greater extent, without ignoring the fact that women are not safe anywhere,” she expressed.

The delegate also warned that in seven of the femicides reported this year, the women previously came to request protection measures, as is the case of Natalia Vásquez, in Bogotá, murdered on a public street after a chase by her attacker, who later took his own life. There was a restraining order against her feminicide because Vásquez went to the protection route for women, offered by the Women’s Secretariat in Bogotá, and she also went to a Family Police Station.

“It is extremely important and urgent to strengthen the administration of justice. And I’m not just referring to the judges, I’m referring to the Family Police Stations and the Prosecutor’s Office. So that we can have cases managed in a timely and effectively manner and that the principle of due diligence and a gender perspective be practiced that leads to destructuring the asymmetry that exists and the belief that women should be subjected to the yoke, because they are the property of the person with whom you have had a relationship,” noted Mora Verbel.

“The aggressors are not the only ones responsible. The State is responsible for the femicides of women, particularly when they have gone to request protection. Prevention is failing, particularly in intimate feminicide (committed by the partner or ex-partner); “It is the most frequent and one of the most preventable because they are characterized by a history of violence,” said Linda Cabrera, director of the NGO Sisma Mujer.

Attorney Mora stated that some legislative initiatives to prevent feminicide “have not managed to be materialized and therefore have fallen short,” citing, for examplethe Law of the National Development Plan of the government of Gustavo Petro with which it was declared, since May of last year, an ’emergency due to gender-based violence’.

Jurists and organizations agree that the criminal prosecution of feminicide has not had conclusive results.

“Has it been effective? No. Criminal law has little that is efficient or preventive. In 2015, complaints about feminicide did not exceed 150 or 200, today we have 900 cases easily in one year throughout Colombia, which demonstrates the absolute failure of crime as a model of prevention and even less of protection for women,” said criminal lawyer Iván Cancino.

Helena Gómez, lawyer the Feminist Legal Network, warned that “the judicial system is falling short and exhausting victims. Femicide is not usually an isolated action. It is accompanied by other violence, such as psychological, physical or economic.

The system is not designed to reduce women’s risk, or to protect them; On the contrary, it is absolutely slow and this implies a judicial delay.”

Carol Rojas, coordinator of the Colombia Feminicides Observatory, said that “punitiveness is not the way out. “We need more social and community measures to stop this.”

The Minister of Justice, Néstor Osuna, assured that the Government plans to promote the creation of a specialty in justice for gender violence. “There is a constitutional reform that is already underway, which presented a women’s caucus to Congress. In technical terms, it is creating within the Prosecutor’s Office and within the Judiciary a specific sector to investigate and punish cases of feminicide,” said the official.

Femicide was created as an autonomous crime by the ‘Rosa Elvira Cely Law’ of 2015. The Attorney General’s Office investigates 207 cases of feminicide that it received in 2023 and 88 so far in 2024. Last year they made 118 accusations for that crime and, so far in 2024, 25 people have been accused.

EL TIEMPO accessed the most recent report from the Superior Council of the Judiciary on the activity of judges, as of September 2023. That year there were 124 convictions and 11 acquittals for femicides and, in 2022, 154 convictions and seven acquittals.

The trend is reversed with cases of domestic violence. At the end of last year, 3,268 people were acquitted of the crime of domestic violence and 2,007 people were convicted. In 2022 there were 3,640 acquittals for this crime and 2,774 convictions.

Currently, the Attorney General’s Office has two other cases of feminicide under verification, corresponding to the discovery of the bodies of the young students. María Paula Dulce and Marcela Rodríguez, 19 and 21 years old, in the rural area of ​​Jamundí.

However, one of the cases that has shocked the country the most was that of Isabella Mesa. The body of this 19-year-old girl was found inside a suitcase on January 28, on the second floor of a home in the 12 de Octubre neighborhood, northwest of Medellín. This is added to the dozen cases registered in the capital of Antioquia and its metropolitan area, where half of the crimes occurred inside the victim’s home and in eight of them the aggressor was known to the victim.

For its part, the Government of Valle del Cauca reported that, between January and until the first week of May of this 2024, there are records of eight femicides. Six of those cases happened in Cali. In 2023 there were 10 cases in the capital of that department.

The director of the Observatory for Women’s Equality in Valle del Cauca, Lina Buchely, He pointed out that this department has one of the highest feminicide rates in all of Colombia, “Unfortunately, we have been in that position for several years. For all this, it is important to raise our voice and remember why building a city free of violence is essential.” , held.

While that two femicides are recorded in Cartagena. Last year, the capital of Bolívar It was the scene of 39 crimes against women, of which six were femicides.

On May 28, the government of President Gustavo Petro enacted a law that seeks, precisely, to toughen criminal treatment for feminicides. The initiative, which has already begun to take effect, toughens criminal measures against those convicted and detained for the crime of feminicide, who will not be able to access criminal benefits and subrogations.

The new rule, Law 2356 of 2024, which was signed by Vice President Francia Márquez and the Minister of Justice, Néstor Osuna, determines that no benefits will be granted such as the conditional suspension of the execution of the sentence or house arrest, nor even when they have served half of the sentence.

In addition, it establishes guidelines that not only apply to those who have already been convicted, but also to defendants who are under preventive detention in prison establishments, who will not be able to serve their detention at home. The enacted law has four articlesthe last being the one that establishes that it governs from the moment of its promulgation.