Impulses on UN Research and Practice

Preface

The Latin American region has one of the highest rates of femicide in the world. Twelve women and girls in the region are killed every day because of their gender. Every two hours, a woman dies in Latin America for the simple fact of being a woman. It is considered one of the most dangerous places in the world for a female (Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean, 2018). Despite the high prevalence of femicide in Latin America, most countries have no comprehensive mechanism to effectively collect data on femicide. This chapter examines the challenges of collecting data on femicide in Latin America and recommends the establishment of a regional surveillance or a monitoring system, in the form of a Femicide Observatory, to collect uniform and consistent statistics throughout the region. The Latin American countries comprise those countries in which Romance languages are spoken by the majority of the population. The countries include (in Central and South America) Argentina, Belize, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Uruguay, and Venezuela. Latin American countries also include Cuba, Dominican Republic, and Puerto Rico.

Preface

“We talk about how many women were raped last year, not about how many men raped women. We talk about how many girls in a school district were harassed last year, not about how many boys harassed girls…” - Jackson Katz (2013)

Femicide (i.e., gender-based murder of women) stands on an equal footing with all types of crime in not discriminating between countries. The only difference is that in some countries, it is more prevalent in comparison with others (see, generally, Strengthening understanding…, 2008). Canada and India are no exception, but the difference is that femicide is less common in Canada than in India. However, regardless of its incident rate, femicide is an unacceptable social reality that needs urgent attention from all the stakeholders. In this article, we will use Canada and India as ‘case studies’ to discuss some of the challenges in trying to collect reliable and valid data on femicide as well as identify some recommendations that can/ might help reduce the ‘dark figure’ of the actual number of femicide cases and how to improve the reliability of data collection of femicide. Because, without reliable and valid data, one cannot adequately inform prevention and intervention practices or policies to combat femicide.

Preface

On April 18-19, 2020, in Nova Scotia, Canada, a lone male, armed with multiple guns, went on a rampage, sparked in part by misogyny, killing at least 13 women and 9 men across multiple rural communities. The result was one of the deadliest mass killings in Canada’s recent memory. Although details have been painstakingly slow to be released, it is clear that at least some of these killings are femicide. Yet police releases, media reports and public discussions that followed the killings have so far not referred to this fact. This situation underscores what many of us know: every country, including Canada, needs a femicide watch or observatory to highlight the sexual aspects of violence experienced by women and girls as well as the sex/gender motivations and indicators frequently at play when women and girls are killed by men, locally and globally. Official narratives surrounding the killings of women and girls – whether a single female victim, multiple female victims, or a combination of female and male victims – often obscures that these are often, and typically, femicides. Simply put, the women and girls were killed because they were women and girls. Therefore, the lives of women and girls continue to be put at risk because the sex-based or gendered elements involved in their killings are often ignored or, if known, are not acknowledged. As a result, the necessary data to develop effective prevention initiatives are not collected or, if available, are not accessible to those actively working to prevent violence against women and girls. Femicide watches or observatories can contribute significantly to addressing these gaps, but only if there is a greater social understanding of femicide as well as the political will and commitment to develop appropriate prevention initiatives. Femicide watches/observatories can work at ensuring this occurs globally.