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UNICEF: Family Violence Against Girls in Mexico a 'Crisis'

Reuters

   MEXICO CITY - Violence against girls in Mexico by members of their own
   family has increased sharply in recent years, rising by nearly a third
   from 2010 to 2014 alone, a UNICEF report said Thursday.

   Girls suffer far more violence, rape, harassment and abuse at home than
   boys in Mexico, said Christian Skoog, a representative for UNICEF, the
   United Nation's children's agency, in Mexico.

   UNICEF's report on violence against Mexican children found that about
   18,000 girls had suffered family abuse in 2010, but by 2014 the number
   jumped to about 24,000.

   About 1 in 5 girls ages 15 to 17 -- almost 700,000 young women --
   experienced some form of family violence in 2015, the report said.

   "The situation of violence is alarming," Skoog told the Thomson Reuters
   Foundation.

   Machismo reigns

   In Mexico, a conservative Catholic country where machismo reigns and
   traditional concepts of gender are deeply entrenched, violence against
   women and girls is an ongoing problem.

   More than 1,100 women were murdered in Mexico from January through May
   this year, according to government figures, with nearly 370 killed by
   men because of their gender.

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