Feminicide is on the extreme end of a continuum of anti female terror that includes a wide variety of verbal and physical abuse. The killing of women because they are women has become a huge problem especially (but not only) in the patriarchal societies of the Latin-American continent. A big obstacle in the struggle against feminicide is the impunity of these crimes. This stems from an often-weak institutional framework and from a general apathy laced with pejorative stereotypes and victim-blaming.

After the awareness-raising in Europe of the occurrence of feminicides in Mexico and Central America including the ratification of a European Parliament’s Resolution, the time seems to be ripe now for raising awareness in Latin America of the occurrence of similar crimes in other countries of the region.

The Euro-Latin-American Parliamentary Assembly plenary session in Lima was a perfect moment to place the feminicide problem on the agenda of the Latin-American and European politicians as well as to rise public awareness. For this purpose the Heinrich Böll Foundation has organised several events with partner organisations in Lima and has presented a publication on Feminicides. The publication is only available in Spanish, final editing by Patricia Jimenez, see pdf (21 pages, 2,1 KB).