Violence against women continues in Mexico, and in 2022 it broke a record in the number of homicides. According to the Executive Secretariat of the National Public Security System, last year, there were 3,754 homicides of women, of which only 947 (equivalent to 33.7%) were investigated as femicides, and the vast majority have not been solved. The rest were classified as “intentional homicide.”
This is equivalent to 10 to 11 women killed every day, and it represents an increase compared to 2021, which ended with 2,749. The most violent month was June, which ended with 279 killings of women, followed by May with 261 and August with 258. Justice rarely prevails in these cases. Many of them are not tried as femicides, which keeps these cases invisible.
Regarding the cases registered as “intentional homicides,” the state of Guanajuato tops the list with 413 cases, followed by Baja California, the State of Mexico, and Michoacán, with 276, 269, and 232 cases, respectively.
With respect to the cases investigated as femicides, the figure remained the same as in 2020, but this does not imply that they have slowed down or much less decreased. Rather, it shows the enormous problem that many of the cases are not tried as femicides, erasing the worrisome violence that afflicts women.
The list of cases investigated as femicide by state is headed by the State of Mexico with 138, followed by Nuevo León with 102, the federal district of Mexico City with 73, and Veracruz with 68. These states, however, have also struggled with the government to make femicides more visible and to legally categorize them as such, which allows for gathering more accurate data.
Violence continues to escalate against women, in a climate of generalized violence, while President Andrés Manuel López Obrador continues to pursue the same “security strategy” from the past six years: militarization. It is clear that as long as the military remains in the streets, violence, far from ceasing, will continue to increase. Additionally, on multiple occasions the relationship between these institutions has been denounced as complicit with violence against women. Recently ,it was made public that the National Guard already has 60 complaints of sexual crimes, and this stat should be considered an undercount since very few cases are reported.
In recent years we have seen massive mobilizations on International Women’s Day, now preparations are beginning for a combative and united day. Although the 8M has been claimed as a date of massive mobilization, the feminist movement has not managed to build a struggle against femicides outside significant dates and in response to tragedies. We need to build a movement that can not only respond but also articulate combative demands in the fight against misogynist violence.
The feminist movement, if it put forward methods of the working class such as the strike, could force the state to implement a comprehensive plan against violence, one that includes measures to address femicides, in addition to demanding the immediate demilitarization of the country.