Protesters mourn one of the latest femicides in México state, that of student Nazaret Bautista in Texcoco.The number of women killed on account of their gender has more than doubled in four years, statistics show.
There were 890 femicides in the first 11 months of 2019, according to the National Public Security System (SNSP), a 116.5% increase over the 411 cases recorded in all of 2015.
The figure is 17% higher than the 760 femicides recorded between January and November last year and almost 7% above the 834 cases reported in all of 2018.
With 152 cases, Veracruz recorded the highest number followed by México state, where 108 women were killed on account of their gender. Almost 30% of femicides across Mexico to the end of November occurred in the two states.
At a municipal level, Monterrey, Nuevo León, recorded the highest number of femicides between January and November with 17 cases, followed by Culiacán, Sinaloa, and Iztapalapa, Mexico City, where 14 and 13 women were killed respectively.
Several México state municipalities, including Toluca, Chimalhuacán, Ixtapaluca, Ecatepec, Naucalpan and Nezahualcóyotl, were among the 100 worst for femicide in the first 11 months of the year.
Murders of women also increased in 2019 compared to four years earlier although the spike was not as large as that for femicides.
SNSP statistics show that 2,564 women were murdered in the first 11 months of the year, an increase of almost 48% compared to the 1,735 cases in all of 2015. The figure is 4% higher than that recorded for the same period of 2018, when there were 2,466 female murder victims.
With 294 cases, México state recorded the highest number of murders of women between January and November. Although Veracruz led the country in femicides, the state didn’t record a single intentional homicide of a woman in the first 11 months of the year.
The total number of femicide and female murder victims was 3,454, meaning that more than 10 women were killed on average every day between January 1 and November 30. The figure is 61% higher than the number of women killed in all of 2015.
The high levels of violence against women triggered protests in many Mexican cities this year including the capital, where several marches were held including one in November to mark the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women.
Source: Milenio (sp)
