Since 2020, Nicaragua has registered a sustained increase in completed and frustrated femicides, which until August of this year has left 184 women murdered and 365 survivors. Of these, 42 femicides and 110 attempts occurred in the first eight months of 2022, according to monitoring of CONFIDENTIAL, based on monthly reports from Catholics for the Right to Decide.
The latest cases include an eight-year-old girl, who was raped and murdered by a 14-year-old adolescent in the El Diamante region, located in El Castillo, Río San Juan. According to police investigations, after killing her with a machete, the femicide hid her weapon in a chagüite and fled. The incident occurred on August 26.
The femicide was classified by Rosario Murillo, vice president and spokeswoman for the regime, as a “act of insanity”. “I don’t know if the tests they have done have found illnesses, delusions, mental health problems. We will have to know all this and be able to explain it to our people, but if we are aware and responsible, we will work harder to avoid these cases.”said the first lady, who last July created a “card” for complaints in the face of an increase in femicides.
That same week, the femicide of Heyling García, 32, occurred, who was strangled by her partner and after murdering her, the man stayed drinking liquor next to her body. According to a relative of the victim, the femicide called García’s mother to tell her: “come here is your dead daughter”.
“The National Police determined that, on Wednesday, August 31, 2022, at night, the subject José Andrés Sandoval Gálvez, 39 years old, drunk and motivated by discord between the couple, argued with his spouse Heylin Karina García Vásquez (RIP), whom he physically assaulted and strangled her, causing her death,” the authorities concluded.
Femicides on the rise
The Voices observatory, of Catholics for the Right to Decide, points out that of the 42 women murdered this year, two were under 12 years of age; five were between 15 and 17 years old, 13 between 35 and 59 years old; and four were older than 60 years.
Likewise, they detail 18 of the cases are in impunity, three under investigation, 14 in judicial proceedings, three were in judicial proceedings but this was suspended and only in four of the cases the femicide has already been sentenced. At least 18 of these deaths occurred in the public sphere and 24 in private.
The report also reveals that the victims knew their killers. Of the 42 cases that occurred this year, nine were perpetrated by their partners, eight by ex-partners, two by boyfriends, one ex-boyfriend, four were by acquaintances, four relatives, two neighbors and there are 12 that the observatory could not establish the connection for lack of information.
In the last decade, at least 595 women were murdered in Nicaragua, according to this observatory. However, 31% of these deaths occurred in the last three years. As a result of these femicides, more than 600 children were orphaned.
Likewise, cases of frustrated femicides have increased by 44% since 2018. According to the data collected by this observatory, at least 76 survivors were identified that year, 115 were already reported in 2020, 140 the following year and in the eight months of 2022 there are 110, this figure alerts that this year the number recorded last year could be exceeded.
The report would be even higher because the observatory only has information on the cases that have the greatest impact in the news or are known through women’s networks and groups, which provide support to survivors of gender violence.
Victims of violence lose spaces of support
In these three years, women victims of violence have also lost spaces to turn to in search of support because the regime has canceled almost a hundred feminist organizations and groups since 2018. According to the Mesoamerican Initiative of Women Human Rights Defenders (IM – Defenders), until June 2022 there were 80 feminist organizations or organizations that work for women’s rights illegally cancelled.
This week, the Ministry of the Interior added six associations of women from rural areasamong these: the Women’s Network for Life Foundation, the Corinteña Women’s House Association, the Ometepe Women’s Association, the “Iris Vado” Women’s Association, the Monimbó Women’s Foundation and the Peasant Women’s Association for Health and Integral development.
Also, the National Police raided the building of the feminist organization Collective of Women of Matagalpa, who had worked for 31 years in defense of women’s rights, but the regime canceled their legal status in August 2021. In July, the buildings of the Feminist Program La Corriente and Puntos de Encuentro were confiscated .
