FEMICIDES IN THE DOMINICAN REPUBLIC

Femicide, defined as the misogynous killing of women by men (Russell and Radford, 1992), has its roots in the larger feminist discourse, which emphasizes the patriarchal nature of society and the tendency to use violence as tool of repression in the maintenance of male dominance. In other words is the act of killing a woman by a domestic partner or a member of a criminal enterprise, the deliberate, wanton violation and massacre of women and girls, as in a particular ethnic group by an invading army. Compare genocide. The term femicide has been forced to take into account perceived ‘modern’ ways in which women’s lives are controlled and harmed by patriarchal structures and, as such, research concerning the term has been extended to encapsulate technological revolutions that effect women’s lives. 

Nowadays the femicide in Dominican Republic is increasing everyday, in newspapers, TV news, on internet, etc., appears in first page a woman who was murdered or abused by her partner. Everybody asks – What are the reasons that lead a man to murder his couple? Nearly 200 women who have died recently in the country at the hands of their current or formal partners. The murder of a woman is always a sad fact; there are different types of offenders, although its final actions are the same. Firearms are the most commonly used by attacks to finalize their victims, the second option the knives.

The femicide is the exit that a mad man finds when he is angry, he forgets that women are so fragile like a glass an is not needed to murder or abuse a woman when there is disagreement between them, the anger and the abuse to a woman show how men are lack of feelings, lack of education, lack of values and respect by himself and also they are not intelligent because who is able to hit his wife can hit his own mother, his daughter and his sister too. When a man has an anger attack he does not think in its consequences even his freedom and his family, and also there are occasions when he finishes killing himself after he murders his couple. The matter is that a man thinks that his wife is an object that he bought in a shopping mall and he is her owner because they have a relationship
.. Everyone has made a mistake because we are human and human are not perfects, if a woman does not

want to go on with a relationship with his husband or boyfriend, to kill her is not the solution even she has the fault, there is no reason to kill anybody, God was our creator an he is the only one who has to decide when is our last day in this world, nobody has the right to do it.

"Women are being killed and are subjected to abuse just because of their gender," said Virgilio Almanzar, director of the Dominican Human Rights Committee in Santo Domingo. Women in this country is often subjected to violence simply because they are women and seen as the weaker sex. What's more, the increase in drug-related violence has translated into more gruesome crimes against women, including decapitations and torture. 

Paradoxically, where women are thought most to be at risk is at home, conceived of traditionally – especially in non-feminist literature – as being a woman’s rightful place. Husbands are said to pose the biggest threat, especially for those women wishing to leave the home or begin divorce proceedings. However, such violence is certainly not limited to the home, but intrinsic to every aspect of society. Media representation of women, for example, when reporting deaths involving women and in pornography and ‘snuff’ films which depict apparently real violence against women for male sexual gratification, highlight the prominence of ‘male’ perspectives on issues that concern women and objectification of women, portrayed as devoid of any subjective experience. The judicial system also plays a role in perpetuating the structures that permit femicide due to the refusal to focus on the misogynistic nature of crimes, and the tendency to shift responsibility from the male killer to the woman killed. Women-blaming strategies which

have even led to the codification of the term “provocation” in many legal systems, is part of the wider phenomenon of “victimology” which deflects blame away from the real culprits, and contributes to the failure of the state to protect women from male sexual violence.