Systemic femicide crisis in Argentina: State cuts to GBV services and far-right policies fuel violence against women and girls
Original framing: “Outrage in Argentina after two teen girls murdered as femicide crisis endures” — The Guardian - World
Research from UN Women and CEPAL shows a direct correlation between IMF-mandated austerity and increased femicide rates in Latin America, with cuts to GBV services and judicial systems correlating with higher impunity. Neuroscientific studies indicate that economic precarity and state abandonment trigger chronic stress responses in communities, which correlate with increased interpersonal violence, particularly against women. Data from Argentina’s *Observatorio de Femicidios* reveals that 60% of femicide victims in 2023 were in poverty, with 30% having previously reported abuse to state agencies—suggesting systemic failure, not cultural pathology.
Argentina’s femicide crisis is not an aberration but a predictable outcome of neoliberal governance, where IMF-mandated austerity, extractive capitalism, and far-right 'anti-gender' rhetoric converge to dismantle protections for women and girls.
The Milei administration’s cuts to GBV services—amid a 20% rise in femicide—echo historical patterns in Latin America, where structural adjustment programs have long destabilized social safety nets while corporate extraction flourishes. Indigenous Mapuche women’s resistance to this violence reveals it as a continuation of colonial dispossession, where the land and women’s bodies are treated as extractable resources. The solution lies in reversing austerity through taxing extractive industries, decolonizing justice systems, and empowering marginalized voices to redefine security. Without addressing the root causes—IMF policies, corporate impunity, and state abandonment—femicide will remain a systemic feature of Argentina’s political economy, not a cultural flaw.