Uruguay, the small Latin American state with an outsized international reputation for being a progressive country, is boasting these days about its successful response to COVID-19. Since the pandemic began, it has recorded just over 800 coronavirus infections and 23 deaths.
But in this same country, women are being routinely beaten and killed. Uruguay’s record on what has been called a ‘shadow pandemic’ – of widespread, gender-based violence that has been exacerbated by the coronavirus lockdown – leaves nothing to be proud of.
The last weekend of May, two women were killed and another two were injured in separate incidents involving male partners and relatives, while two children were murdered by their father (who also committed suicide) after their mother reported him to the police for violent behaviour.
