Women at Risk

For the first time, women's organizations require governments to revise the current Latin American drug policy. Hundreds of NGOs from various countries in the region, including Argentina, are raising their voices to warn of a face visibilizada perhaps little impact of the "war on drugs": the very serious consequences on the lives of women with a steady increase of femicides in the context of the fight against drugs. "This war has serious impacts on women: the murder of women has grown steadily over much of Central America and Mexico, and countries such as Honduras, its increase is four times the increase in killings of men," said Page / 12 Chilean lawyer specializing in the subject, Patsili Toledo, a member of Antigone Research Group at the Autonomous University of Barcelona. Many crimes include sexual cruelty, torture and mutilation, detailed, and warned that the wide availability of weapons also encourages and exacerbates the violence in the domestic sphere.
"The homicide rate for women in El Salvador is the highest in the region: 13.9 per 100,000 women. In Guatemala, the rate is 9.8 per 100,000, and in the Mexican states of Chihuahua, Baja California and Guerrero, the rate nearly tripled between 2005 and 2009, reaching 11.1 per 100,000. In contrast, rates in countries like Chile and Argentina do not exceed 1.4 per 100,000, "differed Toledo. He added: "In countries like Chile, Argentina and Costa Rica, where overall levels of violence are lower, the murders of women are usually less violence committed by partners or former partners in the context of a 'domestic abuse'" . Less than two weeks of the next Summit of the Americas to be held on 14 and 15 April in the Colombian city of Cartagena, NGOs are calling for governments to discuss a change in anti-drug policies.
The call is made by the Regional Joint Feminist for Human Rights and Gender Justice organizations formed by six Latin American countries: ALS Team Justice and Gender Latin American (Argentina) Human Corporation (Chile, Colombia and Ecuador), X:Justice for Women (Mexico) and Demus - Study for the Defense of the Rights of Women (Peru).
The proposal has already led to the accession of more than one hundred NGOs and individuals, from Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, to Santiago de Chile. From Cordoba, expressed support for the call Catholics for Choice, headed by Argentina's Marta Alanis. Recognized activists like Anna Carcedo (Costa Rica), Marcela Lagarde (Mexico), Socorro Ramirez (Colombia) also have joined the complaint. "Violence against women, deeply rooted in sexism and structural discrimination against women, increases in the current context of armed violence in the region, directly related to drug trafficking. Therefore, the gravity of this situation requires an urgent review of current drug policy in order to reduce violence and corruption that feeds extreme forms of violence against women, "says the statement signed by the organizations. One of the move is related to the Chilean lawyer Toledo, one of the most renowned scholars from the scourge of femicide in the region.
- What is the link between drug trafficking and femicide in Latin America? Asked this newspaper to Toledo, who now lives in Barcelona.
-The violence associated with the "war on drugs" and organized crime, including government corruption in some countries have specific consequences for women. As in war, rape cruel women is symbolic: it creates cohesion within the armed groups, reaffirmed the "masculinity" and is a way of attacking "the enemy's morale." But the "domestic" violence is getting worse too: while there are women around the world who are threatened by their partners, the risk increases substantially when men have easy access to weapons and less likely to be brought to justice, as in Mexico and Guatemala, where impunity rate exceeds 95 percent.
Other side of the relationship of drug trafficking and women is that many of them end up in prison for drug offenses. In federal prisons Argentine seen this phenomenon.Most of the inmates are accused of trafficking in small scale, like mules.
- Why this appeal to Latin American governments?
-While the "war on drugs" remains a good business not only for traffickers and money launderers, but also for the arms industry in developed countries, the flood of weapons in the region will continue to fuel violence, which includes extreme manifestations against women, and undermining the justice system. The lack of gun control, coupled with impunity, making the murders are easier and cheaper. Certainly, violence against women exists in peacetime. But it increases and gets worse in times of war. The "war on drugs" must end and that requires global changes in drug control policies that, unfortunately, no law against femicide-approved in recent years in the region mentioned. Ending the war will not eradicate the femicides in Central America and Mexico, but could at least reduce the rate of murders of women at the figures more "healthy" in other countries fortunate to be further from the main trafficking routes.