Invisible victims: How Colombia plans to support kids orphaned by femicide

Bogota, Colombia – The quality made her enactment drawback successful her throat. There, connected her Facebook feed, was a station with an representation of her mother's ex-boyfriend.

The caption announced a femicide: the intentional execution of a pistillate due to the fact that of her gender.

Jennyfer Ramirez was lone 17 years aged astatine the time, a high-school pupil and the eldest of 3 siblings. She had been waiting astatine her uncle's house, wherever her mother, 33-year-old Leidy Navarrete, was expected to arrive.

It was December 23, 2022. Only 2 days remained earlier the Christmas holiday.

But arsenic Ramirez work the Facebook post, she realised her parent would ne'er come. Navarrete was the unfortunate referenced successful the caption. Her ex, Andres Castro, had forced his mode into her flat successful confederate Bogota that greeting and strangled her to decease earlier she could permission for work.

Ramirez felt similar she could nary longer breathe. Overwhelmed with the shock, she fainted.

“It was ever the 4 of america together, my parent and the 3 of us," said Ramirez, present 19. "From 1 infinitesimal to another, everything changed."

Ramirez, her member and her babe sister are what home unit advocates see the “invisible victims” of femicide: children who are near without a parent oregon loved 1 upon whom they rely.

Such murders tin often permission kids orphaned without immoderate parents astatine all, peculiarly erstwhile the perpetrator is simply a begetter oregon guardian.

But caller authorities passed successful Colombia's Congress seeks to connection authorities enactment to the kid survivors of femicide, similar Ramirez and her siblings.

The measure is portion of a increasing inclination of authorities successful Latin America that provides compensation and funds for intelligence wellness services to children struggling with the aftermath of gender-based violence.

“It recognizes that, successful the process of femicide, the parent isn’t the lone victim," said Representative Carolina Giraldo, who helped draught the bill. "There are indirect victims arsenic well."