What is Femicide?

femicide it is the intentional persecution and death of women for gender reasons, that is, the crime of murder, whose motivation involves the fact that the victim is a woman. Not every murder of a woman is necessarily a feminicide, only those that are committed in a family and domestic environment, or when the woman suffers discrimination and belittlement.

The origin of the term feminicide, according to experts on the subject, comes from the word “gendercide”, which defines the murder of people of a single sexual gender, whether men or women. The South African sociologist Diana Russell was one of the first to use the term, in 1976, during a symposium in Brussels, Belgium.

A crime against women is considered femicide when it is proven that the murder was motivated exclusively due to gender, that is, when the woman is killed simply because she is woman.

The following may characterize femicide: sexual abuse, rape, harassment, torture, genital mutilation, slavery sexual assault, beatings and any other type of physical or psychological aggression that results in the death of the woman.

Femicide can be considered an extreme form of misogyny, which is hatred or aversion to women and everything connected to the feminine. It can be classified into three types:

• Intimate femicide: when there is some relationship of affection or kinship between the victim and the aggressor, for example: parents, husbands, boyfriends.
• Non-intimate femicide: when there is no such relationship between victim and aggressor, but the crime occurs with violence or sexual abuse.
• Feminicide by connection: when a woman is murdered while trying to prevent a man from killing another woman.

In Brazil, in January 2019 alone, more than 100 cases of femicide were recorded. On average, in the country there are 13 violent deaths of women per day because of gender. Therefore, according to the World Health Organization (WHO), Brazil is considered one of the most dangerous nations in the world for women.

In an attempt to prevent the occurrence of these crimes, in March 2015 Law 13,104, better known as Femicide Law, by the then president of the republic, Dilma Rousseff. Feminicide then came to be considered qualified homicide, which characterizes a heinous crime, which is considered more serious and has a higher punishment.

Thus, the penalty for the crime of femicide ranges from 12 to 30 years in prison. This punishment can still be increased by ⅓ to half if there are aggravating factors, such as the occurrence of the crime during pregnancy or up to three months after childbirth, against children under 14 years of age or over 60, or with disabilities and in the presence of descendants or ascendants of the victim.