The Costa Rican Congress approved this Thursday, in a second and final vote, a law that creates a comprehensive reparation system for the relatives of the victims of femicide.
"Today Costa Rica is recognizing that a femicide is a responsibility that the State must assume as a whole"said the Minister for the Status of Women and president of the National Institute for Women, Marcela Guerrero.
The law, unanimously approved by the deputies, aims to create a comprehensive reparation regime for people who lost a family member due to femicide and who must face a psychological, family, social and economic process for which they were not prepared. .
The law covers the children of the victim of femicide, relatives up to the first degree of consanguinity or affinity who lived with the victim, and elderly or disabled people who were dependents of the victim.
The initiative creates an economic fund for comprehensive reparation for the beneficiaries, which will have resources from various sources of financing.
In addition, the project seeks to provide, free of charge and priority, to the relatives of the victims of femicide, continuous medical, psychological and psychiatric assistance, study scholarships, housing, advice and legal representation in the related administrative and judicial processes.
"This comprehensive response aims to enable the victims of these femicides to build a new life project, contributing the economic resources for it, providing spaces for training and continuing education and, of course, addressing the psychological consequences of violence”, declared the minister.
According to official data, since 2007, more than 517 daughters and sons, 380 of them minors, have lost their mothers to femicide.
A reform to the Law on the Penalization of Violence, which entered into force on August 23, introduces the concept of "femicide in other contexts" with sentences of up to 35 years in prison.
This applies to those cases in which the perpetrator has taken advantage of a relationship or link of trust, friendship, kinship, authority or a power relationship that he had with the female victim, or when the act occurred within of family relationships of consanguinity or affinity up to the third degree.
This new classification could increase the number of femicides with cases that were previously classified differently.
Figures from the Gender Observatory of the Judiciary indicate that 398 women have died as victims of femicide since 2007.
In 2021, there were 13 femicides and there are 37 cases pending classification because they are under investigation.
In 2020, the number of femicides was 28.
