In the first five months of this year, In Colombia, 63,528 cases of domestic violence were registered, according to data from the Ministry of Defense, which reveals an increase of 52 percent compared to the figures for the same period in 2023, when there were 41,793 cases.
Given these figures, various entities and organizations have called on the authorities and the State to address the cases and prevent this violence, whose victims in most cases are women, from continuing to escalate.
It is worth remembering that today in Colombia, according to article 229 of the Penal Code, Domestic violence is punishable by 4 to 8 years in prison for anyone who “physically or psychologically abuses any member of their family.”
Protest against violence against women.
Photo:Juan Pablo Rueda. EL TIEMPO Archive
This penalty is increased between half and three quarters when it is committed against a minor, a woman, a person over 60 years of age, or who is in a situation of disability or physical, sensory and psychological impairment, or against someone who is in a state of defenselessness or in any condition of inferiority.
The Attorney General’s proposal
Luz Adriana Camargo, Attorney General of the Nation.
Photo:Sergio Acero / El Tiempo
Regarding the judicialization of this type of cases this week, within the framework of her participation in a session of the Legal Commission for Women’s Equality of the Congress of the Republic, the Attorney General Luz Adriana Camarga proposed that principles of opportunity can be carried out – waiver of criminal-temporary action against the aggressors.
“There are cases of domestic violence where the forms of violence are mild violence that we do not want to escalate to serious violence. that can end in feminicide,” said Camargo, adding that in many cases women do not want their partner to end up imprisoned or convicted.
“Women who come to report scenarios of domestic violence do not necessarily want their partner or husband to be deprived of their liberty or sentenced. “They want a solution for the conflictive situation they are experiencing and there we find that the principle of opportunity can give us the possibility of solving a case with favorable agreements that restore the social fabric,” said the Prosecutor.
According to the head of the accusing body, it would be non-definitive temporary principles of opportunity that “make it possible to monitor how these commitments made by the aggressor progress.”
