April 26, 2019 "Information Clearing House" -  María Salguero knows how to leverage her background as a geophysical engineer on behalf of women. Since 2016, she has been tracking cases of femicide (also known as feminicide) all over Mexico. Femicide is the deliberate killing of a woman or girl because of their gender.

Every year, there are tens of thousands of missing women, men, and children in Mexico, most of whom are believed to have been tortured and killed. According to government figures, there were more than 38,000 ‘desaparecidos’ in 2018. Salguero has been building a database with information about women who have been killed because official figures tend to minimise the problem. The women killed are at the end of a tragic spectrum of abuse of women at the hands of men.

Intimate partner violence is the most common kind of aggression experienced by women worldwide, both in developing and in industrialised countries. A great number of women suffer physical violence and a significant proportion among them is also victims of psychological violence. However, many women do not report the abuse they suffer because of cultural norms and fear of retribution.

Economic cost

Violence against women has a high economic cost for society. According to the United Nations, the cost of domestic abuse in the US exceeds $5.8bn per year: $4.1bn for direct medical and health care services and nearly $1.8bn for productivity losses. This kind of violence results in almost two million injuries and nearly 1,300 annual deaths. These costs are considered an underestimate since they don’t include those figures associated with the criminal justice system.