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Social groups in Mexico declared the state of Oaxaca on “maximum alert” for femicides as seven women in Oaxaca have been killed in the past seven days, including Laura Olivia C.M. who was found dead Monday in her home in Santa Maria Colotepec.
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The collective Consorcio Oaxaca made up of women's civil organizations and activists from across Mexico, have demanded the government provide protections for women and put an end to the systemic impunity.
“Faced with the gravity of the situation, we express our indignation and concern for the lives of the women in Oaxaca, who cannot walk in freedom, work or live in peace, because the women-killers are given free license by the authorities,” the collective said in a statement published Friday.
In the past six months since Governor Alejandro Murat Hinojosa took office, 52 women have been murdered in Oaxaca, while in the past 18 years, 1,290 women have been violently killed by their partners.
The collective called on media outlets to stop publishing graphic photos of female victims, arguing it “contributes to the climate of violence and terror." It also urged wider civil society for “zero tolerance, (and to say) no to the justification or legitimization of any kind of violence against women and girls."
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The spiraling numbers of femicides in Oaxaca comes amid a broader crisis of gender violence in Mexico and Latin America.
In Colombia, over 200 women have been killed in 2017, according to Colombia’s National Institute of Legal Medicine. In Paraguay, femicides doubled this year compared with 2016's first two months, with an average of one woman killed every four hours. And in Argentina, one woman was murdered every day between the beginning of the year and April 27.
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