The Milei Government announces that it will eliminate the figure of feminicide from the Penal Code of Argentina
The Argentine Minister of Justice, Mariano Cúneo Libarona, announced this Friday that the Government will eliminate the figure of feminicide from the Penal Code and has argued that “feminism is a distortion of the concept of equality.”
“We are going to eliminate the figure of femicide (feminicide) from the Argentine Penal Code. Because this administration defends equality before the Law enshrined in our National Constitution. No life is worth more than another,” the minister reported on his profile on the social network X.
This is a modification of law 26,791 of the Penal Code, which since 2012 – during the Government of Cristina Fernández (2007-2015) – imposes life imprisonment on anyone who kills “a woman when the act is perpetrated by a man and mediare gender violence.”
“For years they have used women to line their pockets and undermine men. Regardless of our sex, we are all equal before the Law and deserve the same protection and respect,” added Cúneo Libarona, who also considers that feminism “seeks privileges by pitting one half of the population against the other.”
The minister also made reference to the statements of the Argentine president, Javier Milei, during his speech this Thursday at the World Economic Forum in Davos (Switzerland), where he directly questioned the figure of feminicide and considered that “it actually legalizes that the life of “A woman is worth more than a man.”
These statements take place in parallel with an offensive by the Argentine Executive against public policies for the care and protection of women since Milei became President, on December 10, 2023.
The far-right president has also repeatedly expressed his opposition to what he derogatorily calls “gender ideology” and to the 2030 Agenda – which among its objectives includes equality between men and women.
One of his first decisions was to eliminate the Ministry of Women, Gender and Diversity and the Undersecretariat for Protection against Gender Violence, which provided assistance to victims, while he also lowered the hierarchy of the management in charge of Line 144 to reports of cases of sexist violence and other areas of assistance and prevention of violence against women.
In 2024, Argentina registered between 255 and 294 femicides, according to the organizations consulted by EFE, which contradict official figures.
Mujeres de la Matria Latinoamericana (Mumalá) recorded a total of 255 femicides in 2024 – one case every 34 hours -, which means one more than in 2023, and 604 attempts at feminicide, compared to 572 in 2023, while the Observatory of Violence Mercedes Pagnutti raises the figure to 294 deaths due to sexist violence.
The data provided by feminist organizations contradicts that offered by the Government, which speaks of an annual decrease of 10% in deaths from this cause in 2024.
Mumalá's report indicates that only 12% of victims of femicides in 2024 had reported their attacker, the lowest percentage in the last nine years.
