Women's+Response+To+Femicide+In+Central+America

Earlier this year we as a class read an article entitled // Violencia Femicidia //, which outlined the problem of increasing violence against women. In this page I will be restating this issue is it is outlined in the article // No more killings! Women respond to femicides in Central America //as well as stating the efforts to stop this violence as stated in the article. One of the first cases of femicide in Mexico happened in 1993, when women were discovered to be raped and murdered. Since this incident, femicide has been on a steady rise. The violence committed towards these women is both an out lash and an act of inducing terror by men. The only thing more disturbing about the increasing number of these murders is the brutality of them. The article describes the brutality of one such case: “Maria Isabel, a 15-year-old student who worked in a shop, was raped and tortured; her body was found in a bag, tied with barbed wire, her face disfigured and her nails torn out” (26). These brutal killings are the result of males trying to regain their dominance. The economic situation of in Mexico is the largest contributing factor to these acts of violence. As women begin moving into the work place in order to better provide for their families, they move away from their traditional roles as house keeper or full time mother. These women are empowered by their new found freedoms presented by this dire economic situation, and the men of Mexico are furious because of it. Young, poor, and working women are the most likely to be targeted by these attacks. When the media reports on their murders, they are often represented as prostitutes. Some women have become so scared that they refuse to work overtime and therefore forfeit potential income for the sake of not becoming a target of the epidemic of violence. The state of Mexico largely recognizes these crimes against women as being another result of the violence stemming from drug and human trafficking. It seems as though it is easy to blame these murders on drug cartels than to recognize the femicides as an act of gender based violence. These backlashes against women are in part due to the impoverished state of the country, but have much to do with women’s newfound empowerment in their society. The government of Mexico largely refuses to see this as a problem, and often ignores or covers up cases of femicide. “In Guatemala, for instance, 70 percent of murders of women were not investigated and no arrests were made in 97 percent of cases (Amnesty International USA 2006)” (7). All of this continues to occur despite these nations being a part of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW). Another factor contributing to the continual and alluding nature of this problem is the fact that many of these cases go unreported. That is, there is no organized coherent system for handling and processing reports of femicide. Despite the overwhelming problem of femicide in countries such as Mexico, some women’s organizations continue to fight to bring the violence to an end. These groups began organizing in Mexico in the 1990’s. Central American Feminist Network against Violence against Women was formed and has acted as a major voice in this issue. Organizations like these continue to fight for an end to gender based violence, despite the fact that the very existence of this problem is ignored by their government.

Source: Prieto-Carrón, Marina, Marilyn Thomson, and Mandy Macdonald. "No more killings! Women respond to femicides in Central America." //<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-style: none; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-color: initial; border-color: initial; border-left-color: windowtext; border-left-style: none; border-left-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-style: none; border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: initial; border-style: initial; border-top-color: windowtext; border-top-style: none; border-top-width: 1pt; color: #333333; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0in; padding-left: 0in; padding-right: 0in; padding-top: 0in;">Gender & Development // 15.1 (2007): 25-40. //<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; border-bottom-color: windowtext; border-bottom-style: none; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-color: initial; border-color: initial; border-left-color: windowtext; border-left-style: none; border-left-width: 1pt; border-right-color: windowtext; border-right-style: none; border-right-width: 1pt; border-style: initial; border-style: initial; border-top-color: windowtext; border-top-style: none; border-top-width: 1pt; color: #333333; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0in; padding-left: 0in; padding-right: 0in; padding-top: 0in;">Academic Search Premier //. EBSCO. Web. 4 Apr. 2011.

I will be using this page to talk about women's response to the violence in Mexico we read about in class.

-Doug.