The number of femicides in Nicaragua continues to rise. In the first four months of 2023, the Observatorio Voces, from the feminist organization Catholics for the Right to Decide (CDD), has registered that at least 37 women have been victims of sexist violence.
Catholics for the Right to Decide explained that, between January and April 2023, 26 of the 37 femicides were committed in the national territory and 11 were perpetrated abroad: five in Costa Rica, four in the United States, one in Mexico and another in Guatemala, countries where entire families have emigrated due to the repression of the dictatorship of Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo.
Maria Teresa Blandonsociologist and feminist activist, pointed out that “the increase in femicides that we have been experiencing so far this year is alarming, more than 30 women have been murdered as a result of sexist violence and only in the last week we have learned of four atrocious cases.”
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The latest victims of gender violence are Reyna López Pérez, 37, and her daughter with initials MLP, 13who were murdered by López’s partner; Marisol Alarcon, 29 years oldwho was shot to death by her spouse and Maria Isabel Hernandez Vivas64 years old, who was found dead and buried in his debtor’s yard.
Faced with this wave of femicides, Martha Floresa defender of women’s rights, stated that “the situation we are experiencing is very unfortunate for all those women whose lives have been taken away, for that family that is totally destroyed, and above all the children in which it is completely destroyed.” helpless in orphanhood”.
“That is hard, the situation with which a femicide really leaves is hard. We know that femicide touches everyone, it touches an entire community and it touches the family and those children who remain orphans even more,” Flores stressed.
Three minors among the victims
In the report of Catholics for the Right to Decide, it is also detailed that of the 37 women victims of sexist violence, three of these cases are minors. Two of the murdered teenagers were 15 and 13 years old.
For Martha Flores, this reflects that “the situation of women is increasingly insecure because despite the existence of Law 779, which is a law that aims to protect and safeguard the lives of women, however, these figures, these lives, they tell us that there is a total war against women, a war that has no borders, because of the 37 cases of femicide, eleven have occurred abroad.
The Caribbean of Nicaragua a red zone for women
Of the 37 femicides reported so far this year, eight occurred in the North Caribbean Coast of Nicaragua and three in the South Caribbean of the country.
The Caribbean area of Nicaragua is the territory “with the greatest insecurity where the men, the aggressors, only take the life of the woman and flee,” highlighted the CDD defender.
Impunity in femicides
María Teresa Blandón assured that impunity in femicide cases on various occasions comes from the State, because “they do not accept the seriousness of the problem, that they hide the cases, that they do not timely and adequately receive complaints from women when they They go and say I’m in danger of being killed.”
“On the contrary, there is a practice of revictimization that comes from the public institutions themselves, from the police themselves, which is often the gateway to file complaints,” the feminist activist told Article 66.
For her part, Martha Flores pointed out that another situation of violence that occurs “is when women go to file a complaint, they are sent to mediate, mediating is one of the most terrible situations that can exist because women are mediating their lives, because the The aggressor is going to continue and the women have no one to watch them, and the one who watches them is the aggressor, not the authorities.”
«The government within its screen has first created a life sentence and the femicides continued. On the other hand, all femicide is a hate crime and everyone should have a life sentence, but what, is reviewable. From there it is a mockery », he denounced.
