MEXICO CITY (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 22nd February, 2023) The Legislative Assembly of El Salvador on Tuesday approved an amendment to the Code of Criminal Procedure to abolish the statute of limitations for crimes of femicide � an intentional murder of women because of their gender � and allow the Salvadoran prosecutor's office to initiate criminal proceedings in these cases regardless of the time elapsed.
"By 76 votes in favor, we amended the Code of Criminal Procedure so that the crime of femicide would have no statute of limitations and the prosecution would not depend on any deadline so that justice would be done in favor of the victim," the Salvadoran parliament said in a blog post.
Prior to the amendment to the Salvadoran Code of Criminal Procedure, the period of prosecution in femicide cases was ten years, after which the cases were closed, and the victims lost their opportunity to sue.
The new legislation puts El Salvador among the pioneers in this field in Latin America: Mexico, Peru, Bolivia, and Brazil have already adopted similar decisions on the statute of limitations for femicide.
According to the United Nations data, some 81,000 women and girls were intentionally murdered in 2021, in 56% of cases by family members or their partners. The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime noted that the number of such crimes had not changed much over the past decade.
