Femicide and Armed Conflict

There's a forum being held in Madrid on "Femicide and Armed Conflict." In the story, the President of the Advisory Board of the National Union of Guatemalan Women (UNAMG), Luz Mendez, talks (rightly so) of the violence against women in Guatemala. She points to the fact that over 700 women were murdered in the country alone last year. That would seem to indicate that she is using INACIF's statistics that indicate 710 women were killed in violent circumstances in 2011.

I tend to use the PNC's statistics which counts 631 female victims in 2011, down from 695 in 2011.

However if we stick with INACIF's number, the number of female victims declined from 842 in 2010 to 710 in 2011. A decrease of 130 (16%!!!!) would typically reflect an improvement when measuring murders rather than a sign that things are spiraling out of control. 

Maybe that's just me.