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http://www.ipsnews.net/2015/01/teenage-girls-in-argentina-invisible-victims-of-femicide/
ARGENTINA – TEENAGE GIRLS – INVISIBLE VICTIMS OF FEMICIDE
By Fabiana Frayssinet |En español
On
average, 21 adolescent girls in Argentina are victims of femicides every year,
a growing phenomenon linked to domestic violence on the part of current or
ex-boyfriends and husbands. Credit: Juan Moseinco/IPS
BUENOS AIRES, Jan 28 2015 (IPS) - The
murder of a young Argentine girl on a beach in neighbouring Uruguay shook both
countries and drew attention to a kind of violence that goes almost unnoticed
as a cause of death among Argentine adolescents: femicide.
In
most Latin American countries, the lack of broken-down official data on
femicides – a term coined to refer to the killing of females because of their
gender – makes it difficult to identify the victims by their ages.
But
in the case of Argentina, some independent reports, such as one by the local
non-governmental organisation La Casa del Encuentro, have begun to make it clear that not
only are there more gender-motivated killings, but the number of victims under
18 is increasing.
“Between
2008 and 2014 we saw the number gradually rising, and this has to do with
gender violence among young unmarried couples or sexual abuse followed by
death,” the NGO’s executive director, Fabiana Túñez, told IPS.
A
report by the “Adriana Marisel Zambrano” Observatory on Femicides documented
295 cases in 2013 in Argentina, a country of 42 million. Between 2008 and 2013
there were 1,236 gender-related murders of women, equivalent to one femicide
every 35 hours.
Other
Latin American countries
In Mexico, a country of 122 million people, the Network for Children’s Rights
(REDIM) reported in December that 315 girls and teenage girls were murdered in
2013. “Cases of violence against women in Mexico have been on the rise,”
reported REDIM, which complained about a lack of actions by the government to
prevent domestic violence. “Much of the increase is among girls and adolescents
who are victims of violence that in many cases ends in femicide.”
In El Salvador, population 6.2 million, the national police registered 261
femicides in the first 11 months of 2014, 28 of them girls or adolescents 17 or
younger.
In Panama, meanwhile, with a population of 3.9 million, three out of 10 victims
of femicide are minors, according to the office of the public prosecutor. From
2009 to 2014, 343 women were killed in Panama, and 226 of the murders were
classified as femicides.
According
to the Observatory, in that six-year period, 124 adolescent girls between the
ages of 13 and 18 were victims of femicide – an average of 21 a year –
according to statistics gathered from newspaper reports. But the real number
could be much higher, because in a number of cases the victim’s age was not
reported.
The
release of the report coincided with a case that shocked the nation: the murder
of 15-year-old Lola Chomnalez, who went missing on Dec. 28 while on vacation in
her godmother’s house in a Uruguayan beach town.
“They
found the dead body of the Argentine girl who went missing in Uruguay,”
feminist activist Verónica Lemi wrote in Facebook under her pseudonym Penélope
Popplewell. “They keep killing us and there are still people asking what one of
us was doing walking alone on the beach. You hear on TV: the killer saw a
pretty young girl and took advantage of the situation.
“If
we have to be protected, carry pepper spray or be accompanied just to take a
walk on a beach, then women are not free,” she wrote with indignation. “If we
act like we have the same rights as men, we increase the risk that we’ll be
killed just because we’re women.”
Sometimes
the perpetrators stalk their victims on the street: outside of a discotheque,
or on their way home from school or university. But in most cases the victims
know their killers.
According
to Túñez of La Casa del Encuentro, half of all femicides involve sexual abuse
followed by murder. The other half are associated with violence among couples,
cases that are often referred to by the media as “crimes of passion.”
The
local statistics are in line with a global tendency. The World Health
Organisation (WHO) reports that three out of 10 adolescent girls suffer
violence at the hands of their boyfriends.
The
causes, according to Túñez, are the same as in adults. “The male perpetrator
controls, dominates, has jealous fits. And the adolescent girls who are in the
first stages of idealising love believe they can change things but they start
to get caught up in a big spider web from which they find it impossible to
escape later.”
She
stressed that it is necessary to raise awareness among adolescent girls to
“denaturalise” this kind of behavior.
“It’s
not normal for boyfriends to be overly jealous, for girls not to be able to go
out on their own, for their boyfriends to control their movements, snoop on
their cell-phones, insult them or hit them,” Ada Rico, co-founder of La Casa
del Encuentro, told the local media.
On
her Facebook page, “Acción Respeto:
por una calle sin acoso” (Operation Respect: for harassment-free
streets), the 26-year-old Lemi tries to “denaturalise” this “aggressive, sexist
culture” whose worst expression is femicide.
“On
one hand we have the progress made with respect to women’s rights, but on the
other, in terms of idiosyncracies, we are still living in a very ‘machista’ or
sexist society in Argentina, where saying something embarrassing to a
15-year-old girl on the street is ok because it means they like you,” the
activist told IPS.
“The
supposed sexual freedom goes only so far,” she added. “Because every time a
girl is abused, the media and commentators say ‘she must have been a little
slut’. When a woman exercises her sexual freedom she’s considered a whore.”
Lemi
said it is necessary to combat in society “the man-woman relationship where the
man is dominant and the woman is submissive, and to counteract the culture of
blaming the victim.”
“There
is so much violence against women, not just physical, but also in language, at
a symbolic level. Violence against women continues to be justified. In that
context it is only logical that femicides are committed,” she said.
Natalia
Gherardi, executive director of the Latin American
Justice and Gender Team (ELA), said the apparent increase in the
number of femicides could be linked to greater media coverage.
“There
is greater visibility, which is why we hear about more cases and deaths, when
it’s too late to turn to the authorities,” she told IPS.
Argentina
is among the Latin American countries where the most progress has been made in
raising awareness on gender equality and women’s access to education and
decision-making positions.
In
2012, the Argentine legislature passed a law that stiffened the penalties for
gender violence, although it does not include the category of femicide, as in
the case of legislation passed in other countries in the region.
The
Argentine law provides for life in prison when the murderer is the victim’s
current or ex husband or boyfriend, or when the woman is killed for
gender-related reasons.
“Progress
has been made in terms of insertion in the labour market, in education…but that
in itself is not enough to change the ‘machista’, patriarchal culture,”
Gherardi said.
The
director of ELA said there were shortcomings in implementation, oversight and
evaluation of public policies such as the Comprehensive Sex Education law, which takes gender aspects
into account.
“I
would like to see political leaders, women and men, engaging in meaningful
discussions about the violence, above and beyond grand gestures, when appalling
things happen,” Gherardi said.
She
stressed the fundamental role played by the media in the fight against sexist
violence, and added that there are media outlets and journalists who send out
messages “that counteract gender stereotypes and others that perpetuate them,
putting women in humiliating roles.”
“There
are an enormous number of situations of subtle day-to-day violence, before
things reach the stage of beatings or femicide,” she said.