12 The context: violence against women and girls. 58. In the last 12 years, the IACHR and a host of other international agencies, nongovernmental organizations and national agencies, have voiced concern over the State’s lack of due diligence in preventing, investigating and punishing acts of violence against women and the escalation of 43 that violence in Guatemala. 59. In its Fifth Report on the Situation of Human Rights in Guatemala, the IACHR said that 44 violence against women was a severe problem in Guatemala. In that report, the IACHR mentioned the increase in the number of complaints received of rape and intrafamily violence in 1999, by comparison to 45 previous years. It also made reference to reports indicating that gender-based violence was among the 46 main causes of death and disability among women between the ages of 15 and 44. 60. In that report, the IACHR also wrote that Guatemala’s response to intrafamily violence revealed a number of specific areas in which additional measures needed to be taken to effectively 47 protect the victims’ basic rights. One of the reasons the Commission cited to explain why the response to gender violence in Guatemala was not what it should be, was that clear information revealing just how 48 widespread the problem was in the country was lacking. In 2003, the IACHR again observed that the difficulties in obtaining precise figures notwithstanding, it was clear that there had been an increase in the number of women murdered in which the crime was not properly investigated and the perpetrator 49 50 punished. According to the figures that the National Police of Guatemala supplied to the Commission, 43 IACHR, Press Release No. 20/04, The IACHR Special Rapporteur Evaluates the Effectiveness of the Right of Women in Guatemala to Live Free from Violence and Discrimination, Washington, D.C., September 18, 2004; Committee on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women, CEDAW/C/GUA/CO/6, June 2, 2006, Original: English, 35th session, May 15 to June 2, 2006, paragraph 23, available online at http://www.un.org/womenwatch/daw/cedaw/35sess.htm; Report "Integration of the Human Rights of Women and the Gender Perspective: Violence against Women, Report of the United Nations Special Rapporteur on violence against women, Yakin Ertürk on the Mission to Guatemala, February 8 to 14, 2004; Guatemala’s Human Rights Ombudsperson, Compendium titled “Muertes Violentas de Mujeres 2003 to 2005” [Violent Deaths Among Women, 2003 to 2005], p. 92, available online [in Spanish] at http://www.pdh.org.gt/files/inf_especiales/muerte_mujeres03-05.pdf; Amnesty International, “Guatemala: No protection, no justice: killings of women (an update)”, AI AMR 34/019/2006, 2006; Amnesty International, “Guatemala: No protection, no justice: killings of women”, AI AMR 34/017/2005, June 2005. International Federation of Human Rights (Federación Internacional de Derechos Humanos, FIDH), International Investigative Mission Report: Femicide in Mexico and Guatemala (Informe: Misión Internacional de Investigación: El Femicidio en México y Guatemala), no. 446/3 April 2006. 44 IACHR, Fifth Report on the Situation of Human Rights in Guatemala, April 6, 2001, OEA/Ser.L/V/II.111, Doc. 21 rev., paragraph 41. 45 Figures from the Public Prosecutor’s office indicate that 1400 complaints of intrafamily violence had been received in 1999, and almost 600 of rape. In 1998, the figures were just over 600 in the case of intrafamily violence and slightly over 400 in the case of rape. 46 IACHR, Fifth Report on the Situation of Human Rights in Guatemala, April 6, 2001, OEA/Ser.L/V/II.111, Doc. 21 rev., paragraph 41. 47 In that report, the IACHR documented the fact that the organization MINUGUA conducted an in-depth study of the State’s response to intrafamily violence and rape in 1999. When it examined how the State personnel assigned to receiving complaints of intrafamily violence responded, MINUGUA identified a tendency among many, particularly the police, to blame the victim. One agent was quoted as saying that frequently “the main cause of intrafamily violence is the woman’s behavior.” 48 IACHR, Fifth Report on the Situation of Human Rights in Guatemala, April 6, 2001, OEA/Ser.L/V/II.111, Doc. 21 rev., paragraph 47. In the Report the Commission underscored the fact that the director of the “Domestic Violence” Program of the United Nations’ Latin American Institute for the Prevention of Crime and the Treatment of Offenders (ILANUD) estimated that half of all Guatemalan women suffer some form of violence, mainly physical. One representative from the Network to Combat Violence against Women in Guatemala -a nongovernmental organization- estimated that a woman is subjected to violence every 46 minutes. 49 50 IACHR, 2003 Report on the Situation of Human Rights in Guatemala, paragraph 296. The IACHR compiled information on the murder rate in Guatemala in which the victim is female through a working visit conducted from September 12 through 18, 2004, and a follow-up visit by the IACHR Rapporteur for the Rights of Women, Víctor Abramovich, from July 14 through 17, 2006, as part of the activities conducted in Guatemala during the Commission’s 125th special session.