Twenty-five year old Ingrid Escamilla was murdered by her partner in Mexico on February 9, 2020-only days before Valentine's Day. Her body's photos were scattered throughout the country into newspapers. Days later, Fatima Aldriguett Anton, seven years old, was tortured and murdered, and the anger was further fuelled. Around Mexico City's Prime Minister's Palace, protesters demanded concrete government intervention against the femicide of this country. Thousands of protesters took to the streets in response to such murders. They spoke by flinging red paint at the building and splattering the names of the dead victims of femicide on its walls.

Unfortunately, deaths of Ingrid and Fatima have become an indication of a frequent occurrence - ten women are murdered on the basis of gender every day in Mexico. Less than five percent of these murders have been solved and the justice system never file charges.

Women raise their hands as they protest against gender violence and femicide in Puebla
Reuters

Appeal for motion is getting louder; protest marches call for the Mexican government's failure to disclose any prevention strategy for femicides and to cover the subject in the press that they say gives the abuser's testimony too much space and too little respect for the life and body of the victim.

Since 2012, Mexico has distinguished femicide from homicide with a sexist lens in the murder of women. Similar differentiation has been rendered for femicides in 17 other nations in Latin America, charges that often involve harsher sentences. But this month, regardless of the fact that somehow the Attorney General reports 137 percent more femicides in the United States in the past five years- four times more than the other homicides-, it was debated by Mexico's government removing this distinction from its penal code. In response to comments accusing women of exploitation and past economic policies, Mexico's President Andrés Manuel López Obrador ultimately admitted that he did not agree with the proposed penal code reforms relating to femicide, and these changes did not take place.

The issue of femicides has not been prevented in Peruvian media. Cases occur daily with an annual average of over 100. Studies of tentative femicides are now on the rise, perhaps not only caused by the actual crime incidence as well as by women's and their family's increasing willingness to expose such incidents. The government of Peru works to encourage women to report by providing them with a government-supported support system. The press is also working on making women more secure, not only by publicizing the crime but also on the convictions provided-which can be up to three decades.

In 2016, the Peruvian Government has recognized the epidemic publicly and put it as a state priority for years to follow with the development of a government plan against gender based abuse. A number of organizations with professional task forces are now working to reduce femicides and prosecute offenders, including women's trauma centers, women's hotlines and the Specialized Police Squad for Prevention Against Domestic Violence.

At the same time, a long-term program has been adopted to break a cycle of domestic violence among children in Peru. The programs include a special unit protecting the rights of orphaned children or for survivors who have been affected by abuse against them.