Nicaragua/Women: They Kill Us Because They Hate Us

 

Although they continue murdering women, their cases are left forgotten because “there’s no commitment to seeking and arresting those who commit femicide.”

 

By Maryorit Guevara  (Confidencial-Niu)

HAVANA TIMES – Yader Triguero Hernandez, 28, wasn’t satisfied with merely killing Johana Flores Abaunza, 48. Before she took her last breath, he broke her feet and hands, he slit her throat, he stripped her naked and he buried her in the yard of the house they shared in Leon.

The killer sullied her body to show what men like him do with their possessions: they use them and then discard them. Johana belonged to him, in life and in death. He invested his energy in belittling her and exposing her until her death.

In the first four months of 2019, Nicaragua registered 22 femicides, a truly terrifying statistic in a country of six million inhabitants. Spain, with more than 46 million inhabitants, registered five femicides less than Nicaragua.

This data offers us a look at the true dimensions of the problem of violence against women, the lack of educational, preventive and punishment policies against a crime that endangers the life of more than half the population.

The State, eternally absent

Women are hated not only by their partners, their ex-partners, and their acquaintances, but also by the State. None of the past governments, much less that of Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo, have shown the least interest in preventing violence against women.

Women are only considered important when they vote, because they represent over 50% of the population; when they give birth to new votes; and when they generate cheap labor for exploitation. Outside of that, what does it matter if they’re abused, raped, roped into sex trafficking, murdered…?

 

Under the current regime, they’ve sent people to beat women, threaten them with rape, kill them with their children, but it shouldn’t surprise us to see such actions emanating from a monarchical dictatorship headed by a man who’s been accused as a rapist.

The laws are nothing but paper and ink

Now the bots will come out commenting that this is the only “government” that has promoted a true equality. Excuse me? True equality? The two laws they could brag about, if they were really interested in women’s lives, would be Law 779 and Law 468 – violence and equality – but those laws are nothing but ink on paper.

They mucked up the issue of violence against women when by decree they promoted mediation [between abuser and abused]. And they finished throwing it in the toilet by closing the police Comisarias de la Mujer [special offices for women]. On the subject of equality, while it’s true that the ratio in the Mayor’s offices is 50/50 men and women, it’s also true that the women – even in the role of mayors or assistant mayors – have no power, not even to choose the clothes they wear.

And let’s not talk about the fact that this government criminalized therapeutic abortion after 100 years of this right for women in Nicaragua, a right granted them to save their lives.

Impunity reigns amid chaos

There’s no real education for a culture of peace, nor is there any violence prevention; there’re also no sanctions for those who commit this crime. And it’s not because the Penal Code doesn’t contemplate it, but because – although it’s been established – the instances that comprise the route to accessing justice are inoperable and politicized.

 

Currently the Ortega police (formerly a National body) don’t even respond to the complaints of violence unless you arrive in a coffin. And even then, when the women arrive in their coffin, their cases are left forgotten, because there’s no commitment to look for and capture those guilty of femicides. At this moment, the priority is to jail and try all those who dare tell Ortega that he’s an assassin.

No one is concerned about the lives of women, but when the feminist organizations have the audacity to demand that we be treated like people with rights, then they’re “femi-nazis” and exclusionists because they should be defending the rights of everyone, not only that of women.

Meanwhile, time goes by, and the women continue suffering violence from the red and blacks, but also from the blue and whites; they continue being murdered, mutilated, having their throats cut, their heads severed, being impaled, raped, dismembered… because this topic isn’t important right now.

So now, I must ask: When will the life of women be important?