On Tuesday, the National Autonomous University of Honduras (UNAH) presented a report on gender violence with verified data corresponding to the period January to October 2021. With this information, the National Observatory of Violence (ONV) confirmed that one woman was violently murdered every 27 hours and 33 minutes.
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In order to establish a more up-to-date approach to gender violence, human rights defenders completed that information with press data corresponding to November and December. Thus, the ONV detected that the victims of femicide were killed with firearms in 68.9 percent of cases and with knives in 13.8 percent of cases.
The study states that 30.8 percent of femicide victims were between 18 and 29 years old, while 10.7 percent of murdered women were minors. In the count of victims of gender violence, the group 30-to-59 group represented 41.2 percent of the crimes and the group of women older than 60 comprised 6.9 percent of the cases. There was 10.4 percent of femicides that were registered in the "undetermined age" group.
The information also shows that the largest number of cases of violence against women took place in the departments of Francisco Morazan (58), Cortes (48), and Olancho (23). In the past year, 75 percent of murders of women occurred in public places.
In 2013, Honduras reformed its penal code to recognize femicide as a crime. Despite this fact, violence against women continues to be a serious human rights issue.
On Tuesday, President-elect Xiomara Castro said she would encourage actions for women's rights. This public policy option was strongly supported by the Honduran Center for Women's Studies.
United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) Michelle Bachelet tweeted that "addressing discrimination, inequality, denials of women's civic space and gender-based violence must be a priority for building peace."