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By THE PULSE NEWS MEXICO STAFF

Last year was the most violence in Mexican history for women, with 1,040 victims of femicide in the country, the highest figure since this high-impact crime began to be reported in official statistics in 2015.

This means that, on average, two women were killed each day because of their gender; most of them in the State of Mexico, 145, followed by in Jalisco with 70, Veracruz with 70, Mexico City with 69, and Nuevo León with 66, according to the latest report on victims from the Executive Secretariat of the National Public Security System (SESNSP).

In 2021, two monthly records were set for the number of victims of gender-based violence, with May registering 108, and August, one of the worst months in criminal incidence against women, reaching 111, the highest figure.

In the first three years of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s six-year term, there have been a total of 3,056 victims of femicide,  37 percent more than the 2,229 during the last three years of government. of former President Enrique Peña Nieto.

According to government statistics, the López Obrador administration currently has the highest criminal incidence of murders of women based on gender, with 1,004 committed in 2021, 987 in i 2020 and 917 in 2019.

Moreover, National Citizen Observatory (ONC) Director Francisco Rivas Rodríguez said that last year not only closed with the highest incidence of femicides in the country, but also in crimes such as rape and family violence, in which the victims are mainly women.

“The main aggressor of women are emotional partners, followed by family members,” Rivas Rodríguez said.

“It must be remembered that siblings, brothers-in-law, parents, grandparents also commit sexual violations. Last year was the worst in terms of sexual violations, and also in femicides.”

Meanwhile, for some NGOs, budget cuts to institutions and programs aimed at preventing violence against women, and the lack of public policies for their protection, as well as mechanisms aimed at preventing the increase in femicides in Mexico, create a bleak picture, in which the number of victims of this crime will continue to increase.

Guadalupe Ramos Ponce, from the National Femicide Observatory (ONF), added that the figures for femicide in Mexico are worrying, so they should prompt government action.

What is direly needed at this time to prevent femicides are public policies, which  do not exist, she said.