More than 40 femicides were reported in Venezuela in the first two months of the year

The Venezuelan organization Utopix reported on Tuesday that at least 41 femicides occurred in the Caribbean country from the beginning of January to the end of February of this year, representing an average of one murder of a woman every 35 hours.

“From the State, there is no concrete proposal to address this problem, which only shows the great shortcoming that exists in public policies related to the prevention, attention and mitigation of gender-based violence against women,” said the NGO on its official website.

In January, 23 cases were documented and on February 18, of which four were recorded in Miranda State, three in Carabobo, two in each Lara, Bolivar and Caracas regions, and one in Delta Amacuro, La Guaira, Anzoátegui, Guárico and Táchira.

The NGO explained that most victims of femicide were between 36 and 40 years old, with a peak between 31-35 years old and 46-50 years old.

Of the 18 femicides recorded in February, eight were with bladed weapons, four cases of mechanical asphyxiation, two involving firearms, one case of drowning and one beating murder; however, the cause of death of the remaining two cases is not known.

The organization indicated that, of the 18 cases, in five cases they left the bodies of the victims on public roads; in four cases, the victims were tortured; in three, they were reported missing; and in three other cases, women were sexually abused.

On the other hand, Utopix pointed out that, out of a total of 19 femicides, four are imprisoned, three escaped and three committed suicide, while of the remaining nine there is no information.

“Faced with this reality, we must make it visible and give voice to those women and girls who died by feminicide violence, demanding urgent action from the Venezuelan State in the face of increased violence and denouncing the impunity that often protects these aggressors,” the organization said.

On Tuesday, the dictator of Venezuela, Nicolás Maduro, said, during the Venezuelan Women's Congress 2022, that one of the main tasks of women is to “gestate”.

“Without women, there simply would be no society, the womanderer of the revolution. Women, we know, have great tasks in life: the task of giving birth, of giving birth; the task of forging, forming, raising; building values. All women have, in their deep innocence, an innate sense to protect and love humanity,” said the president, without referring to the femicides that have been reported in the country in recent years.

According to Utopix, femicides increased alarmingly during 2020 to the murder of a woman every 34 hours, compared to 2016, when femicide occurred every 72 hours.

In 2021, the average was one femicide every 36 hours.

In the middle of this month, the Venezuelan NGO Committee of Relatives of Victims of Caracazo (Cofavic) presented its report “Violence Against Venezuelan Women”, in which 1,821 violent deaths of women were recorded between 2017 and 2021, of which 53% were femicides.

(With information from EFE)

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