(Image Source: Karla Fajardo, Shutterstock; https://tinyurl.com/j8yd9t33)
By Stella Del Carmen
Femicide—defined by Diana Russell as the killing of women for the simple reason of their being women—has evolved from a social concept to a recognised human rights emergency.i In Latin America, the term feminicidio underscores the role of state negligence or complicity in enabling gender-based killings. Globally, femicide has reached what experts describe “pandemic proportions,” with tens of thousands of women and girls murdered each year because states fail to protect them.ii
Each year, thousands of women and girls are murdered, often exhibiting patterns of sexual violence, torture, or disappearance prior to death with Mexico among the countries experiencing persistently high rates.iii Official statistics in the country wrongly categorise femicides by classifying many cases as generic homicides, masking the severity of the crisis. Impunity exceeds 90 percent in many Mexican states, meaning that most perpetrators are never investigated, let alone prosecuted.iv
Such predictable patterns of violence align with core humanitarian frameworks, which classify emergencies by systemic harm, state incapacity, and failure to protect civilians. The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights has repeatedly documented how Mexican authorities dismiss reports of missing women, delay investigations, and perpetuate discriminatory narratives, behaviours that fall under institutional violence. This reflects the structural failures in policing, forensic capacity, and gender-sensitive investigation protocols.v When states fail to prevent foreseeable harm or respond to mass victimization, the crisis moves beyond domestic criminal law and into the realm of humanitarian concern.
Humanitarian frameworks recognise crises not solely by the presence of armed conflict but by systematic violence and state inability or unwillingness to protect civilians. In this sense, femicide in Mexico constitutes a humanitarian emergency: violence is widespread, patterns are well documented, victims can be identified demographically, and the state’s response is chronically inadequate. UN News recently reported that the rise of organised crime has made femicides increasingly “invisible,” with local authorities unable to distinguish cartel killings from gender-based ones, further obstructing accountability.vi This entrenched impunity transforms private acts of violence into public failures of state protection.
Gender-based killings in Mexico meet this threshold. They are widespread, targeted, and preventable. The violence disproportionately affects marginalised populations (young women, migrants, labourers, and indigenous women) and mirror humanitarian patterns of vulnerability.vii Mexico’s femicide crisis therefore represents a human rights emergency rooted in both gender discrimination and governance failure. At the same time, the Mexican case reveals a broader global emergency that demands coordinated international action.
The 2001 murders of Claudia Ivette González, Esmeralda Herrera Monreal, and Laura Berenice Ramos Monárrez in Ciudad Juárez reveal the depth of institutional failure.viii After the girls disappeared, police dismissed their families’ concerns and refused to investigate. Days later, their bodies were found in a cotton field exhibiting signs of sexual violence. This was the area from which at least eight other murdered women had been recovered. Authorities subsequently mishandled evidence, failed to secure the crime scene, obtained coerced confessions, and denied gender-based motives.
In González et al. (“Campo Algodonero”) v. Mexico, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights held Mexico responsible for violating the victims’ rights to life, personal integrity, and judicial protection. Crucially, the Court recognized gender-based killings as a state responsibility rooted in structural discrimination. The ruling mandated reforms including specialized investigative units, improved forensics, training for officials, reparations, and prevention measures targeting violence against women.
The Campo Algodonero legal case is significant not only domestically but also internationally. It establishes a legal precedent for framing femicide as a human rights violation and requires cross-border oversight. More importantly, it demonstrates that international bodies such as the United Nations and Inter-American Court of Human Rights, can intervene when states normalize gender violence through inaction.
Despite landmark legal reforms, Mexico’s response remains fragmented and weak. Failures in institutional coordination between federal and state authorities, rooted gender bias among investigators, and massive forensic backlogs impede justice. Militarization—introduced as a strategy against organized crime—has further eroded trust and diverted resources away from gender-violence prevention. Scholars also point to corruption and political incentives that deprioritize violence against women, allowing impunity to reproduce itself.ix These chronic failures reveal a gap between legal commitments and implementation, sustaining a humanitarian environment where women remain acutely vulnerable.
Furthermore, while Mexico is often highlighted as the epicentre of the femicide crisis, this phenomenon is global. UNODC reports that approximately 50,000 women and girls were killed by intimate partners or family members in 2024, meaning that every day more than 130 deaths occur in the safety of the home.x Currently, Africa currently records the highest global number of intimate-partner related femicides, with Kenya experiencing a sharp rise that is described by human rights groups as a “national crisis.”xi
Moreover, South Africa exhibits some of the world’s highest femicide rates. As of late 2025, the government has formally declared gender-based violence a national disaster.xii Similar patterns exist in Southeast Europe, where Balkan countries exhibit alarming levels of domestic and gender-based killings, thereby prompting interventions by regional human rights groups.xiii Lebanon’s civil society organizations describe a “battle against femicide” amid weak enforcement of protective laws.xiv East African scholars warn that femicide constitutes an Indo-Pacific humanitarian crisis, intertwined with conflict dynamics and state failure.xv
These global patterns confirm that femicide is not regionally isolated but structurally produced. Mexico’s experience demonstrates the introduction of legal and humanitarian mechanisms necessary to confront the crisis, mechanisms that may guide international responses.
Femicide in Mexico reflects a humanitarian crisis rooted in systemic state failure, entrenched impunity, and predictable patterns of gender-based violence. The Campo Algodonero ruling illustrates how international law can compel states to address such violence through prevention, accountability, and reparations. Yet global data and emerging crises in Kenya, South Africa, the Balkans, Lebanon, and across the Indo-Pacific reveal that femicide is not a Mexican or Latin American anomaly—it is a global emergency.
Understanding Mexico’s crisis as part of a broader humanitarian pattern underscores the need for coordinated international intervention, stronger monitoring mechanisms, and sustained pressure on states to protect women’s right to life. Femicide must be treated with the similar urgency afforded to other mass-atrocity threats, for it represents one of the most pervasive and preventable forms of human suffering worldwide.
Bibliography
Austin, Madeline. “How Mexico’s Femicide Exposes Its Corruption.” Democratic Erosion. June 5, 2022. https://democratic-erosion.org/2022/06/05/how-mexicos-femicide-exposes-its-corruption/
Center for Strategic and International Studies. “Femicides in Mexico: Impunity and Protests.” March 19, 2020. https://www.csis.org/analysis/femicides-mexico-impunity-and-protests.
Donnelly, Brendan H. J. “East African Femicide: An Indo-Pacific Humanitarian Crisis.” Indo-Pacific Researchers. May 10, 2024. https://indopacificresearchers.org/east-african-femicide-an-indo-pacific-humanitarian-crisis/.
Funa, Ana. “Femicide in the Balkans: An Alarming Situation.” Global Campus of Human Rights. November 16, 2023. https://www.gchumanrights.org/preparedness/femicide-in-the-balkans-an-alarming-situation/.
The Guardian. “Femicide in Kenya Is a National Crisis, Say Rights Groups.” January 18, 2024. https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2024/jan/18/femicide-in-kenya-a-national-crisis-say-rights-groups.
Khairallah, Violette. “A Cry for Justice: Lebanon’s Battle Against Femicide.” Wilson Center. December 9, 2024. https://www.wilsoncenter.org/blog-post/cry-justice-lebanons-battle-against-femicide.
Meegan, Joe. “Gonzalez, Monreal and Monarrez (‘Cotton Field’) v. Mexico.” London School of Economics and Political Science. June 3, 2016. https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/vaw/landmark-cases/a-z-of-cases/gonzalez-et-al-v-mexico/.
The New Humanitarian. “The Fallout of US Migration Policies in Mexico and Central America.” February 11, 2020. https://www.thenewhumanitarian.org/analysis/2020/02/11/US-Mexico-migration-deportation-Honduras-Guatemala-El-Salvador.
The New York Times. “Mexico’s Femicide Crisis and AMLO.” March 6, 2020. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/06/opinion/international-world/mexico-femicides-amlo.html.
Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR). “States Must Eradicate Femicide Globally: UN Expert.” Press release, October 23, 2023. https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2023/10/states-must-eradicate-femicide-globally-un-expert.
Russell, Diana E. H. “Defining Femicide.” Speech presented at the United Nations Symposium on Femicide: A Global Issue that Demands Action. Vienna, Austria. November 2012. https://www.dianarussell.com/defining-femicide-.html.
UN News. “Mexico: Boom in Organised Crime Making Femicide Invisible, Local Activist Says.” December 5, 2024. https://news.un.org/en/story/2024/12/1157811.
United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC). “137 Women and Girls Killed Every Day by Intimate Partners or Family Members in 2024.” Press release, November 25, 2025. https://www.unodc.org/unodc/en/press/releases/2025/November/137-women-and-girls-killed-every-day-by-intimate-partners-or-family-members-in-2024.html.
UN Women. “Five Essential Facts to Know about Femicide.” November 25, 2025. https://www.unwomen.org/en/articles/explainer/five-essential-facts-to-know-about-femicide.
Yuliartini, Dewa Ayu Putu. “Breaking Patriarchy’s Shadow: South Africa’s Femicide Crisis and Global Resistance.” Modern Diplomacy. December 3, 2025. https://moderndiplomacy.eu/2025/12/03/breaking-patriarchys-shadow-south-africas-femicide-crisis-and-global-resistance/.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR(S)
Stella is a recent graduate from the School of International Service with an M.A. In International Affairs: Global Governance, Politics and Security. She is interested in International Criminal Law, Legal Linguistics, and Humanitarian Interventions.
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