The presentation exposes various manifestations of violence in Latin America during the first decades of the 21st century.

1. INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS
OF LATIN AMERICA
Violence in Latin America
Dr. Jacqueline LAGUARDIA MARTINEZ
Jacqueline.Laguardia-Martinez@sta.uwi.edu

2. Violence in Latin America
• In 2014 at the 2nd Summit of CELAC in Havana, Latin America and the Caribbean was
declared as a Peace Zone.
• Even if the region is free of wars, violence is a main concern for Latin American
societies.
• Latin America is home to 33 % of world homicides (home of 8% of world population).
• Four countries, Brazil, Colombia, Mexico and Venezuela, account for a quarter of all the
murders.
• Of the 20 countries in the world with the highest murder rates, 17 are Latin American,
as are 43 of the top 50 cities.
• Violent crime spikes in a handful of places. The regions suffers from pockets of violence.
• Homicide rates are especially concentrated among the youth population. Latin
America´s youth homicide rate is more than three times the rate of the general
population (46% of all homicide victims are between 15 and 29 years old).
https://igarape.org.br/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/Citizen-Security-in-Latin-America-Facts-and-Figures.pdf

3. Estimated absolute number of homicides in LAC by year
Muggah and Aguirre Tobón, Citizen security in Latin America: Facts and Figures

4. Average homicide rate (per 100,000) in 2012
Muggah and Aguirre Tobón, Citizen security in Latin America: Facts and Figures

5. Muggah and Aguirre Tobón, Citizen security in Latin America: Facts and Figures
Proportion of homicides of selected countries, 2016 or latest year available

6. https://igarape.org.br/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/Citizen-Security-in-Latin-America-Facts-and-Figures.pdf
Top 20 countries by homicide rate, 2017 or latest year available

7. Muggah and Aguirre Tobón, Citizen security in Latin America: Facts and Figures
Proportions of homicide by gender

8. Violence in countries and against civil society actors
• In Latin America, crime tends to concentrate in place, time and among specific
people.
• In Colombia, according to the Defensoría del Pueblo Office, 164 social leaders and
human rights defenders were murdered in 2018, and 226, according to Indepaz.
Between 2016 - 2018, at least 431 social leaders and human rights defenders were
assassinated, most of them indigenous, peasants and Afro-descendants.
• In Mexico, 144 journalists have been killed since 2000.
• Honduras, is the most dangerous country for ecologist activists. Since 2010, 123
activists have been killed. According to the NGO Global Witness, about 60% of
murders recorded of ecologist activists are registered in Latin America.
• Brazil is the country where more people from the LGBT community die from
violence. The life expectancy of Brazilian transgender person is only 35 years. Every
19 hours an LGBT person is murdered in Brazil (445 murders in 2017).

9. https://cpj.org/data/killed/2018/?status=Killed&motiveConfirmed%5B%5D=Confirmed&type%5B%5D=Journalist&st
art_year=2018&end_year=2018&group_by=location

10. Social leaders murdered in Colombia in 2018
https://www.elcolombiano.com/colombia/paz-y-derechos-humanos/mapa-de-los-asesinatos-de-lideres-sociales-en-colombia-en-2018-CH9977325

11. Violence against social leaders
Marielle Franco was a Brazilian politician, feminist, and human
rights activist for the afro descendent and LGTB communities.
As city council member, Franco fought against gender violence,
for reproductive rights, and for the rights of favela residents.
On 14 March 2018, Franco and her driver were shot multiple
times in Rio de Janeiro.
Franco had been an outspoken critic of police brutality and
extrajudicial killings.
Berta Cáceres was a Honduran environmental activist,
indigenous leader and co-founder and coordinator of the
Council of Popular and Indigenous Organizations of
Honduras (COPINH).
She was assassinated in her home by armed intruders,
after years of threats against her life, on 2 March 2016.
Her murder was followed by those of two more activists
within the same month.

12. Confidence in Latin American institutions (2015-2016)
https://igarape.org.br/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/Citizen-Security-in-Latin-America-Facts-and-Figures.pdf

13. Proportion of homicides by type in Latin America
https://igarape.org.br/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/Citizen-Security-in-Latin-America-Facts-and-Figures.pdf

14. Gangs in Central America: “Las Maras”
• Phenomenon originated by migrants in LA, USA, mostly Salvadorans, Guatemalans and
Hondurans.
• They were deported to the countries of origin. The countries were not informed on the
crimes committed by the deportees.
• Maras operated territorially.
• They are involved in illegal activities of any kind and murdering.
• Their members identified themselves by tattoos covering the body and often the face, as well
as the use of their own sign language.
• Their actions rely in the systematic use of violence and a moral code of their own based on
revenge and retribution.
• Maras are for the group members (pandilleros) a second family. They started as group
support for young Latin migrants in the US with little possibilities to get education, jobs,
security. The nature of the “maras” has continued when relocated in Central America.
• They operated as transnational organizations.

16. Gang membership and homicide rates in Central America
Thomas C. Bruneau. 2014. "Pandillas" and Security in Central America, Latin American Research Review, Vol. 49, No. 2

17. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-40480405

18. https://www.businessinsider.com/map-mexican-drug-cartels-2011-7

19. 2014 Iguala mass kidnapping
• On September 26, 2014, 43 male
students from the Ayotzinapa Rural
Teachers’ College were forcibly taken
and then disappeared in Guerrero,
Mexico.
• There is no response on what
happened with them. They are still
missing, probably buried in a mass
grave.

20. Tlatelolco massacre
• On October 2, 1968, in the course of permanent students mobilization
(supported by workers, farmers, housewives, merchants, intellectuals, artists and
teachers), paramilitary groups together with the police and the army opened fire
to protesters gathered in a public square.
• The movement aroused from July–October 1968 in the context of the buildup to
the 1968 Summer Olympics in Mexico City and protests in France and in the
United States.
• Students demanded political and civil liberties, the reduction of inequality and
the resignation of the government, among other social demands.
• Estimations established the number of deaths in a range from 200 to 1500.
• The first students’ massacre conducted by the Mexican State happened in 1942.

21. Why growing crime and violence in Latin America?
• Poverty, inequality, deficit on education and social policies, limited social mobility.
• Lack of jobs (youth unemployment), urban segregation (zones of exclusion), local
drug markets, the availability of firearms and the widespread use of drugs and
alcohol.
• Collusion between police and criminal groups, together with corruption and
impunity.
• Policing, criminal justice and penal systems are poorly managed and
underprepared.
• Narrow punitive criminal justice approaches to crime prevention.
• Criminal activities are linked to transnational networks of illegal trade (production,
transshipment, and distribution of drugs). There is a whole sector of criminal
economy.
• Crime has become a socialization system (larger populations excluded from the
formal economy and society).

22. Structural Origins of Violence in Latin America
Sanchez R., Magaly. 2006. “Insecurity and Violence as a New Power Relation in Latin America”, The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science

23. There is the necessity of restoring the legitimacy of the
State and the effectiveness and efficiency of its basic
services and public policies, together with
implementing long-term public safety and security
frame-works.
• Novel approaches to public security beyond increasing private security.
• Government initiatives targeted to specific areas and criminal activities.
• Mayors, business people and social leaders are investing in interventions
at the municipal scale, building safety and security from the ground up.

24. Migrant caravans in Central America
• On October 2018, more than 1,000 people set off from Honduras with the intention of walking
to the United States. This caravan, estimated to comprise of 7,000 people, is probably the
largest ever recorded.
• These people are fleeing widespread violence (gangs), poverty and food insecurity.
• Their goal is to settle in the United States.
• For Central Americans, who typically depend on expensive and unreliable smugglers to travel
to the United States, caravans offer a cheaper, safer way to migrate. There is more solidarity in
going with groups. They don’t have the fear that they are going to be the victims of organized
crime.
• Caravans from Central America have inflamed the debate over U.S. immigration policy, with
President Trump using the migrants to try to secure backing for his plan to build a border wall
on the frontier with Mexico. President Trump labelled the migrant caravan as “an invasion”.
• On January 2019, a new caravan of almost 1,000 Central American migrants departed to the
United States.

25. Why the media paid attention this time?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fTX9JhAjM_s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Er8Lq-kQaU

26. Migration in Latin America
https://www.dw.com/es/migraci%C3%B3n-en-am%C3%A9rica-latina-y-%C3%A1frica/a-19343400

27. http://tiempoyforma.com/chiapas/infografia/migracion-en-america-latina
Migration in Latin America (2018)

28. https://www.dw.com/es/migraci%C3%B3n-en-am%C3%A9rica-latina-y-%C3%A1frica/a-19343400

29. Remittances in Latin America and the Caribbean(2017)
https://lanacionweb.com/internacional/remesas-a-latinoamerica-y-el-caribe/