"The girl told the guy she didn’t want to date him or have sexual relations with him; so he killed her. But it wasn’t considered a femicide, because in Nicaragua it’s only a femicide if the woman is murdered by her partner.
“We also have a new law that is supposed to protect women from violence, but as soon as it was passed we suffered another setback when the government reformed the law to reintroduce the old concept of 'family mediation' in cases of domestic violence. Now we have neighborhood groups that intervene when a women suffers from domestic violence and they try to mediate between the man and the woman. Of course then the violence continues, and the police show up and try to mediate again. And then violence continues, because after being subjected to so much mediation the man starts to harbor even more hatred towards the women. And sometimes that ends in another femicide.
“We also suffered a setback in the area of life-saving abortions; Nicaragua used to allow for therapeutic abortions, but then the government outlawed it from one day to the next. These are the issues we face — fighting for rights and trying to prevent more setbacks. It’s a daily struggle. But it makes me proud to be a young feminist in my country, because it means using my voice to say what I think and what I believe and working for change… There are a lot of young feminists in Nicaragua, but only a few who participate in the feminist movement. I’m not sure why."
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