I'm going to follow on from my last post, it was getting a bit long so I'll continue here with a brief description of femicide and the horrific crisis of homicide in Honduras. In Honduras, on average, 85.5 out of 100,000 people are murdered a year (see the map below for the official statistics). To put this into context, Britain has 1.2 murders per 100,000 people. The definition of femicide is 'the intentional homicide or violence against women purely for gender reasons.' - "they kill us because we are a woman."
In Honduras in the 7 years between 2005 and 2011 femicide increased by 192.6%, this translates as 1 woman killed every 17 hours. Statistically, despite the high rate of gang violence, more women are killed than men. Furthermore, due to corruption, there is very little police help. Only about 6% of femicide cases are investigated and only about 2% are taken to court. This is because of a lot of impunity for men, especially as many officials are involved in the crimes which affect women, such as human trafficking and prostitution. Further to this, there is a lot of resistance from the government to 'clean up' the police system.
There are several reasons women are targeted by men, often to enforce their masculinity in the home. As I stated in my last post women are seen to be 'owned' by the men in their lives. Her sexuality, time and space is controlled, for example what she does, wears and where she goes. In this society, this is what is considered to be 'love'. In order for this problem to be changed the whole of society needs to address it. The work of women's charities, such as some of the organisations I will be volunteering with in the next few weeks, are starting to make changes from the base of society, by giving women greater opportunities.
