A Barrio 18 woman in a 2008 documentary about El Salvador gangs, "La Vida Loca". All rights reserved.
A recent report by a number of international organizations (pdf) revealed that seven out of the ten countries with the highest female murder rate in the world are in Latin America. El Salvador heads the list with a rate of 8.9 homicides per 100,000 women in 2012, followed by Colombia with 6.3, Guatemala with 6.2, Russia with 5.3 and Brazil with 4.8. Mexico and Suriname are also in the top ten.
While general violence levels and domestic abuse are considered to be the main contributors to high femicide rates, organized crime also plays a huge yet overlooked role in the victimization of women in Latin America. As Guatemala's Attorney General Thelma Aldana told InSight Crime, 50 percent of the 854 women killed in Guatemala in 2015 were murdered as a direct result of organized crime.
