The crime of María Belén Bernal, apparently occurred inside the Higher Police School and investigated by the Prosecutor’s Office for the crime of femicide, moved the legislative hornet’s nest.

In the Monteolivo cemetery, family and friends say goodbye to María Belén Bernal.

All the political forces are looking for a way to mediate their outrage and opened the debate on the need to reform the Comprehensive Organic Criminal Code (COIP), to regulate the participation of the State by action or omission in cases such as the one registered on September 11.

On the other hand, social organizations such as Fundación Aldea show the data and figures that show the magnitude of the problem and classify it as a social pandemic that reaches the entire Ecuadorian territory. None of the 24 provinces is excluded from the femicide statistics, with Guayas and Pichincha leading the number of cases.

The director of Fundación Aldeas, Geraldina Guerra, reveals that the rate of femicides in the country grew in 2017 and 2021, and that the study carried out on hidden realities, forgotten and invisible data on femicides in Ecuador determined that in 2021 it was the year where more cases were presented and that in 2022 violence against women is escalating with new forms in which femicide is presented, and that the State has to respond as a guarantor of rights.

Guerra comments that the statistics determine that Guayas and Pichincha are the provinces with a high rate of femicide cases and this is due to the fact that all the public institutions are in those two jurisdictions.

Legislation

In Ecuador there are two regulations that address femicide. The first approved in 2014, which typifies in article 141 of the COIP, the crime of femicide “the person who, as a result of power relations manifested in any type of violence, who kills a woman for the fact of being one or due to her gender condition, she will be sanctioned with a custodial sentence of 22 to 23 years.”

Article 142 of the same COIP establishes the aggravating circumstances where the maximum penalty provided for in article 141 will be imposed, for:

  • having attempted to establish or re-establish a relationship or intimate relationship with the victim.
  • There is or has been between the active subject and the victim family, conjugal, coexistence, intimacy, courtship, friendship, companionship, work, school or any other relationship that implies trust, subordination or superiority.
  • If the crime is committed in the presence of daughters, sons or any other relative of the victim.
  • The victim’s body is exposed or dumped in a public place.

The second law, published in the Official Gazette in February 2018, is the comprehensive organic law to prevent and eradicate violence against women, this rule conforms to what the Constitution determines that the State must consider the necessary measures to prevent and eradicate violence against women. prevent, eliminate and punish all forms of violence, especially violence against women. This law establishes three components for the eradication of violence: care, protection and reparation for women victims of violence to guarantee their safety and integrity and to resume their life project.

It obliges, among other things, the Decentralized Autonomous Governments to design, formulate and execute local regulations and policies for the prevention and eradication of violence against women, girls, adolescents, youth, adults and older adults; create and strengthen Cantonal Boards for the Protection of Rights, guarantee women victims of gender-based violence comprehensive shelter services with specialized personnel.

New proposal

The legislators of the Justice Commission opened the debate on what else to deal with the increase in cases of femicide, and above all, determine the responsibility of the State in violent crimes against women.

For Gisela Garzón, assembly member of the Unión por la Esperanza caucus and member of the Justice Commission, it is time to put on the debate the possibility of including a criminal type in the COIP, which is femicide , where the State also assumes responsibility for the violent death of a woman within a government space, such as the Bernal case, which occurred within the police precinct. All this becomes necessary, she adds.

The Pichincha representative assures that there is an initiative of civil society organizations that legally accompany female victims to classify femicide. With this, the treatment of the Bernal case would be different because the Prosecutor’s Office would no longer have excuses for not dictating alternative measures, because the responsibility for the crime becomes institutional, and at the moment of establishing the femicide the only person responsible would no longer be only German Cáceres (husband de Bernal and presumed responsible), but all those who were on duty the night the lawyer entered the Police School and in this way the responsibility would have to be assumed by the police institution for having Cáceres inside.

The reforms should go to the COIP, adds Garzón, where the difference between femicide and feminicide must be understood. Femicide is related to the death of a woman at the hands of any civilian citizen without responsibilities within the State, and femicide is when the State is partly to blame, when the crime has happened in a government space, as in the Bernal case, and when the person who commits the crime has state responsibilities.

Are femicide and feminicide the same?

Johanna Moreira (ID), also a member of the Justice table, proposes opening a broader debate on the subject, because what is a crime of a State crime must be differentiated from a crime with State responsibility. It is necessary to analyze the criminal type, to avoid confusion, since the regulations must observe the legislation contained in international instruments.

The president of the Justice table, Alejandro Jaramillo (ID), agrees with Moreira that the parameters to define the crime of femicide must be observed, because not only is it enough to point out that it is any crime that is committed against a woman within an institution of the State and therefore there would be a responsibility of the State. What has to be guaranteed is the comprehensive reparation of the direct family of the victim.

At the moment there are two bills in the Justice Commission regarding the creation of judicial units for femicide and gender cases. Additionally, work is being done on the process of monitoring, compliance and evaluation of the law to eradicate violence against women. The report will be ready at the end of next November.

The director of Fundación Aldea believes that the solution does not lie in criminalizing femicide, but in the Government establishing sufficient and efficient resources to implement a public policy for the prevention of violence against women.

To confront this phenomenon, it is not about making laws and then changing them, because the crime of femicide is criminalized in the country and that also accounts for what feminicide says. Marcela Legarde, a Mexican theorist, coined the term femicide to make visible the responsibility of the State in cases of violent deaths in the city of Juárez, Mexico.

In Ecuador, adds Guerra, the same is collected as in the COIP, and in the case of María Belén Bernal it is a femicide and feminicide, where there is a state responsibility. Therefore, for social organizations such as Fundación Aldea, it is not a problem of terms, but it is the moment to save lives, and in the case of Bernal, it is a State crime because “he was registered in a state security and protection institution.” . (YO)