Puebla sets the 8th place with the highest number of missing persons, according to the National Registry of Missing and Unaccounted for Persons. However, this is mainly a problem for Puebla’s women, as they are the main ones affected.

According to the records of missing and unaccounted for persons in Mexico, girls and teenagers represent 55.65% and women over 18 years of age, 24.8% total number of missing persons, according to Alejandro Encinas, Undersecretary of Human Rights of the Ministry of the Interior.

Twenty-five percent of women, girls and adolescents who are missing or unaccounted for are in the age range of 10-19 years old, with 8,15 thousand people.

The percentage of missing girls and adolescents, the undersecretary assures that most are related to human trafficking and the most vulnerable age range is 10-19 years old, with a total of 21,518 since 1964.

What is a femicide?

Femicide is considered by the Mexican penal system as the violent death –for gender reasons– of women and is the most extreme form of violence.

Article 325 of the Federal Criminal Code establishes that the crime of femicide is committed by anyone who deprives a woman of her life for gender-related reasons. It is considered that there are gender-based reasons when any of the following circumstances concur:


publicidad puebla
 
  • The victim presents signs of sexual violence of any kind.
  • The victim has been inflicted with infamous or degrading injuries or mutilations, prior or subsequent to the deprivation of life or acts of necrophilia.
  • There are antecedents or data of any type of violence in the family, work or school environment, of the active subject against the victim.
  • There has been a sentimental, affective or trusting relationship between the perpetrator and the victim.
  • There are data that establish that there were threats related to the criminal act, harassment or injuries of the active subject against the victim.
  • The victim has been held unreachable, regardless of the time prior to the deprivation of life.
  • The victim’s body is exposed or exhibited in a public place.

Victims in Puebla

Puebla, seventh place nationally in femicides. Between March 25, 2022 and April 25, 2022, at least five women were reported killed in Puebla, according to newspaper reports.

This figure is lower than the one that occurred between February and March, when nine women were murdered.

Here are some cases:

Rosa María

Rosa Maria was 15 years old and was reported missing on March 20, 2022 in Cuetzalan.

According to her relatives, the teenager had left home to go to the restaurant where she worked. However, she never arrived.

After four days of searching, her lifeless body was found near her home.

For this reason, relatives, friends and collectives held a march in the municipality to demand justice for Rosa’s death.

Unidentified

The body of a woman was found in a ditch in  Palmar de Bravo town, on March 25, 2022.

According to local media information, people walking in the area noticed the body in a ditch in the town of Jesus Nazareno and called the municipal police.

Recommended to read: Puebla has a femicide every 4.6 days: OVSG

The arriving police noticed that the body was in an advanced state of decomposition. So far, his identity is unknown.

These are just some of the daily murders in Puebla, and most of them are femicides.

Mexico Femicide

Puebla isn’t the only state affected by violence against women, there are many states around the country were are killing women, Nuevo Leon is one of them.

A total of 887 femicides were registered during 2021 in Mexico, of which 33 were committed in Puebla; derived from this, 11 cases occurred in the capital, which places the municipality in seventh place nationally in this crime.

According to the Incidence of crime and 911 emergency calls report of the Executive Secretariat of the National Public Security System (SESNSP), the municipality of Tecamachalco is in 87th place with three femicides. While, in terms of states, Puebla is 11th place, in this case the first place is the State of Mexico with 130 cases, Veracruz is second with 65, and Jalisco is third with 64 murders.

All this is in cases where it was proven that it was femicide, despite the fact that every violent death of a woman should be investigated as this crime. On the other hand, it indicates that in numbers of homicides against women, in Puebla 172 cases were registered, of which were:

  • 74 intentional homicides
  • 98 culpable homicides
  • 2,408 injuries
  • 2,61 intentional injuries
  • 347 culpable injuries

Due to this different collectives started to manifest asking for justice.

“Debanhi did not fall, Debanhi was killed”, expressed the collectives remembering her case in Monterrey, they also placed candles in memory of the young woman who disappeared and 12 days later was found lifeless in the tank of a motel, after a cab driver left her on the road in the early hours of the morning.

Femicides
(Photo: Juan Carlos Sánchez Díaz/La Resistencia)

But, they not only recalled the case of the young woman in Nuevo Leon, but also some that have occurred in the state of Puebla, as they mentioned the femicides of Mara Castilla, Paulina Camargo, Liliana Lozada, Ana Karen Martinez, among others, at the symbolic roll call.

Today I am afraid to go out, to get in an Uber, to make this publication for fear that they want to silence me, I just want to say that this will never happen, they will never have my silence and here you have a platform to raise your voice,” shared Sofia Canto, from Mujeres Unidas de Puebla.

We are going to keep fighting

In the afternoon of April 25, feminist collectives demonstrated at the Metropolitan Security Complex “C5”, due to the constant cases of missing and/or murdered women because of gender issues.

Recommended to read: Mothers in resistance: From victims to advocates. 

According to Mujeres Unidas de Puebla, the meeting was at 5:00 p.m., where women came with bulletins of missing women throughout Mexico, as well as posters and candles, in front of the C5.

Liz Domínguez
(Photo: Es Imagen)

The fight goes on, hundreds of women will continue manifesting, asking for their rights to live in a safe country, asking the state to ensure that no case goes unpunished, because they all matter.

 

 

 

 


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