The UN worries about the reduction of penalties for femicides

Guatemala .- UN Women expressed today "its concern" because the Guatemalan Constitutional Court authorized femicide convicts to reduce sentences something The decision of the highest court of the country, UN Women, explained in a statement, "puts even more danger to collateral victims (family and children)", because it increases the risk of "revenge and retaliation" of condemned.

The Constitutional Court declared unconstitutional a penalty contained in Article 6 of the Law against Femicide and other forms of violence against women in which it was said that condemned by femicide "can not benefit from the reduction of sentence for any reason whatsoever", on the understanding that it violates the social rehabilitation and the re-education of the convicts.

In this regard, UN Women recalled that the State of Guatemala is "pioneering" in its legislation that sanctions the crime of violence against women, as in As many of the laws and conventions testify, he called on him to consider in all his decisions "the full recognition of women's human rights".

This is to maintain the commitment to guarantee a life without violence against women.

Latin America and the Caribbean is the most violent region in the world for women, where 2 out of 5 experience gender-based violence, about 30% have been sexual victims of their partner and women. 10.7% experienced sexual violence outside the couple.

According to data from UN Women, released last year, Guatemala is among the top five countries with the highest figures of violence against women and only in between January and October 2017, 877 women were murdered, according to the public prosecutor.