UN
Special Rapporteur Rashida Manjoo honours a terrible fact in her latest report "
Gender-related killings of women": more and more women are killed around the world, just because they are women. The vast majority of these crimes take place with absolute impunity, which many observers consider an incentive for murderers and potential murderers to go on killing.
In the early '90s, women's groups coined the expression "feminicide" (or "feminicidio" in Spanish) for this crime, as they discovered an increasing number of women and girls killed in
Ciudad Juárez, a Mexican city at the US border, with "
Maquila" manufacturing industry. Once the phenomenon had a name, it was observed far beyond the North of Mexico. In fact, feminicide was registered in most places in Latin America, but also in other parts of the world.
In 2007, the European Parliament adopted a landmark
report on "Feminicide in Mexico and Central America and the role the European Union should play to combat it", written by rapporteur
Raul Romeva, from the Greens/EFA Group. In 2008, the EU put in force "Guidelines on violence against women", which should also contribute to curbing feminicide as the most extreme form of violence against women. For Latin American women, the 2009
Judgment of the Inter-American Court for Human Rights against the state of Mexico, in the so called "Cotton Fields" case paved the way for further anti-feminicide action. Some, but far too few countries adopted pertinent legislation. The 2010 EU-Latin America and Caribbean Summit in Madrid put language into its final declaration which recognises the necessity to eradicate feminicide. EU High Representative Catherine Ashton issued a
declaration in June 2011 expressing her worries for feminicide in Latin America and supported the "Cotton Fields" judgment.
All these steps have had no effect on the number of victims nor the reigning impunity for murderers. UN Special Rapporteur Rashida Manjoo will ring the alarm during her two days in Brussels, on 8th and 9th October 2012, on the
invitation of the
Heinrich Böll Foundation. The highlight of her interventions will be a
hearing on the topic of her 2012 report, jointly organised by the Human Rights Committee (DROI), chaired by Greens/EFA MEP
Barbara Lochbihler, and the Women's Committee (FEMM), on initiative of its former feminicide rapporteur Raul Romeva, and counting with the presence of members of the Eurolat delegation.
Green MEPs have already announced their intention to strongly push an initiative, in co-operation with human rights and feminist NGOs, urging the next EU-Latin America and Caribbean Summit in Santiago de Chile, at the end of January 2013, to go beyond words and adopt a concrete action plan for the eradication of feminicide, that is allocated sufficient funds to implement and monitor. The problem is too serious to leave to declarations.
