Written by Tilourshita Thiagu
Marisela Escobedo Ortiz boarded a bus on December 16, 2010, heading to the Government Palace in Chihuahua to demand justice for her 16-year-old daughter, Rubí. Rubí’s body had been found in 2008, burned, dismembered, and abandoned for months. Her killer, Rubí’s former boyfriend Sergio Barraza, confessed. And yet, three state judges released him, citing “lack of evidence” (Foreign Policy in Focus, 2011). Marisela, undeterred, carried her grief through courtrooms, protests, and petitions until a masked gunman shot her dead in broad daylight, outside the very building where she had placed her last hope for justice. Two crimes. One unanswered demand: dignity for her daughter. And she paid for it with her own life (Foreign Policy in Focus, 2011).
Marisela and Rubí’s story is not an anomaly; it is one among thousands. Across the region, women are killed not because of what they have done, but because they are women. Shot by husbands. Beaten by ex-partners. Strangled by strangers. Their deaths are brutal, intimate, and predictable. This is not domestic violence. It is femicide: the gender-motivated killing of women. And it has become a regional emergency.
The statistics are staggering. In 2022 alone, over 4,000 women were murdered in Latin America simply for being female (ECLAC, 2023). Every six hours, a woman is killed by someone who once claimed to love her. In many cases, the bodies are never recovered. The perpetrators are never caught. And the state never speaks their names. These deaths are not isolated incidents. They form a pattern that is systemic, relentless, and largely ignored.
To its credit, some Latin American countries have attempted to legislate against this crisis. Mexico defined feminicidio in its penal code in 2012, with Argentina, Bolivia, Peru, and Colombia following with their own legislative reforms (Oxford Research Encyclopedia, 2020). These laws often acknowledge gender-based motives and impose harsher penalties when factors like domestic abuse or sexual violence are involved. However, despite this, conviction rates remain abysmally low. Investigations are routinely mishandled. Police often dismiss killings as crimes of passion or suicide. In some cases, judges do not apply femicide laws at all, reverting instead to lesser charges like murder or manslaughter.
This failure is not only cultural but structural. Many of these countries lack the institutional training, forensic capacity, or political will to implement these laws effectively. There is no single protocol for identifying femicide. Families often conduct their own investigations. In El Salvador, nearly 98% of femicide cases end without conviction. In Mexico, the impunity rate hovers at around 95% (Amnesty International, 2023). In Honduras, femicide is the leading cause of violent death for women. These numbers reveal a harsh truth: codification alone is insufficient without enforcement, oversight, and accountability.
Regionally, the Inter-American Convention on the Prevention, Punishment and Eradication of Violence against Women, known as the Belém do Pará Convention, was adopted in 1994 (Organisation of American States, 1994). It was groundbreaking, defining violence against women as a human rights violation and obligating states to act. However, it lacks strong enforcement mechanisms, leaving a significant margin of discretion for states to implement its provisions. This lack of enforceability limits the impact of these conventions, as their recommendations are often ignored.
Rather than drafting an entirely new convention, what is needed now is a dedicated regional protocol or legal instrument under the framework of Belém do Pará, one that directly confronts femicide. This protocol must mandate standardised legal definitions, outline evidence-based investigative procedures, and enable cross-border cooperation on data collection and forensics. Importantly, it should empower the Inter-American Commission of Women to oversee implementation and hear complaints when domestic systems fail.
Such a mechanism would help bridge the gap between political will and legal accountability. It would strongarm states to go beyond symbolic reforms, aligning their national laws with a shared regional standard. Like the Istanbul Convention in Europe, this would transform a rights-based aspiration into legally enforceable obligations, finally treating femicide as the regional emergency it is (Council of Europe, 2011).
Internationally, the jurisdictional gap is even more glaring. The Rome Statute, the foundation of the International Criminal Court (ICC), prosecutes genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity. But femicide is not explicitly recognised. While some have argued that widespread gender-based killings might fall under ‘persecution’, the ICC has never taken up a femicide case, even in areas where the violence is endemic. The law is cautious. But caution has left thousands unprotected (International Bar Association, 2023).
At the UN level, the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) is the only legally binding instrument addressing discrimination against women, but it too lacks teeth as it sadly fails to expressly address violence against women, let alone femicide (Khadija Saad, 2021). While the CEDAW Committee, which monitors the treaty’s implementation, has provided evolutive interpretations of the Convention through its thirty-nine general recommendations, these are not legally enforceable and do not bridge the treaty’s gap regarding explicit protection against femicide.
Codifying femicide in international law is not symbolic but necessary. Naming it as a standalone international crime would do three things: create pressure, establish legal precedent, and open pathways to justice. The Rome Statute should be amended to explicitly include femicide as a crime against humanity. Alternatively, the UN General Assembly could adopt a resolution urging member states to criminalise, track and report femicide just as they do with torture, trafficking, and enforced disappearance.
Legal codification also shifts culture. When rape was defined as a war crime in the 1990s, it reshaped military conduct, prosecution standards, and survivor support (Britannica, 2025).
When apartheid was named, it legitimised global intervention and accountability. Naming femicide would do the same. Until then, the world will continue to treat it as tragic, but tolerable.
It would also create practical tools. Governments would be required to fund forensic training, establish femicide units within law enforcement, and provide support services for victims’ families. Courts would be compelled to consider gender motive. Prosecutors would be trained in trauma-informed practice. Families could access international legal forums when their domestic systems fail to provide them with adequate protection.
Each time a woman is killed and the law looks away, the message becomes louder: your life is not worth the paperwork. Your death does not count. Your absence does not require justice.
Marisela Escobedo Ortiz carried her daughter’s name on placards, in interviews and on courtroom steps. She died because the state refused to protect her, and then failed again to investigate her murder adequately. Her case represents not just a failure of law, but a failure of will. That will can be reshaped by naming the crime, defining it and demanding action beyond borders.
There is no justice without naming. And there is no excuse left for delay.
References
Amnesty International. (2021). Justice on trial: Failures in criminal investigations of femicide preceded by disappearance in the State of Mexico. https://www.amnesty.org/en/documents/amr41/4556/2021/en/
Amnesty International. (2023). Mexico 2022. https://www.amnesty.org/en/location/americas/north-america/mexico/report-mexico
Council of Europe. (2011). Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence (Istanbul Convention). https://www.coe.int/en/web/istanbul-convention
Devries, K. M., & Pallitto, C. C. (2020). Femicide: A global public health and human rights issue. In Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Politics. Oxford University Press. https://oxfordre.com/politics/display/10.1093/acrefore/9780190228637.001.0001/acrefore-97 80190228637-e-1715
Donnelly, S. (2006, February 1). The murdered women of Juarez. Foreign Policy in Focus. https://fpif.org/the_murdered_women_of_juarez/
Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean. (2022, November 25). At least 11 women are victims of femicide every day in Latin America and the Caribbean. https://www.cepal.org/en/pressreleases/least-11-women-are-victims-femicide-every-day-latin -america-and-caribbean
International Bar Association. (2023, March 8). Latin America’s femicide legislation is failing women. https://www.ibanet.org/latin-america-femicide-legislation
Organization of American States. (1994). Inter-American Convention on the Prevention, Punishment and Eradication of Violence Against Women (“Convention of Belém do Pará”). https://www.oas.org/juridico/english/treaties/a-61.html
Saad, K. (2020, October 18). Is CEDAW an effective tool in preventing femicide? SSRN. https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3896794
Rape as a weapon of war. (2025, June 12). In Encyclopaedia Britannica. https://www.britannica.com/topic/rape-crime/Rape-as-a-weapon-of-war
