The Board for Help in the Cases of Mistreated Women (Pacam) has revealed that 60% of the women who have been mistreated have higher education including postgraduate studies and masters’ degrees. This finding dismisses the idea that victims of domestic violence are poor and with a low academic level. Zoraya Lara, president of Pacam, shared the results of a study that Pacam had carried out at a round table meeting together with the Foundation for Institutionalism and Justice (Finjus).
Lara explained that the results were based on 718 cases that were attended to by Pacam from 2009 to the present. The data showed that only 33% of the victims had reported the violence to the police and 12% of the victims had been threatened with death by their partner.
She said that the state needed not only to bolster the criminalization and punishment for domestic violence, but government agencies must also work in prevention and follow up, as the majority of the victims of violence were later killed once they had left their partner.
Servio Tulio Castaños Guzmán, executive vice president of Finjus, said that the problem of femicides was a social condition and that the Penal Code should be revised as well as the process of coercive measures, forensic analysis and investigation in cases of femicides.
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Listin Diario
14 February 2018
