78 221. The Court has also noted that Rosa Elvira Franco has had access to the investigation and has played an active role in it by making statements, filing briefs, presenting information, and consulting officials in charge of the case, among other actions. However, the State has argued that Mrs. Franco’s intervention has obstructed the investigation by providing contradictory or inconsistent information that, in its opinion, has not been useful. In this regard, the Court considers that this argument by the State is inadmissible to justify an undue delay in the proceedings because, in the domestic jurisdiction, it is for the competent organs to direct the investigation and to channel it in keeping with the strategies or lines of investigation that they have identified in order to clarify the facts and, in any case, the investigation must be advanced, ex officio, without the victims or their next of kin having to assume this initiative,333 which corresponds to the State. 222. From the foregoing, the Court concludes that the period of more than 12 years that domestic justice has taken merely at the stage of investigating the events is greatly in excess of a period that can be considered reasonable for the State to conduct the corresponding investigative procedures, and constitutes a flagrant denial of justice. Consequently, this case is in a situation of impunity in which those responsible for María Isabel’s murder have not been identified or punished, and the members of her family have been unable to know the truth about the events. The State’s obligation to investigate must be fulfilled diligently to avoid impunity and the repetition of this type of incident (supra para. 183). 223. Added to the above, the Court underlines that gender-based violence against women is a historical, social and cultural problem that is deeply-rooted in Guatemalan society. This is because, during and after the armed conflict, women suffered specific forms of genderbased violence, while the perpetrators remained in total impunity due to the inability of the courts of justice to investigate, prosecute and punish those responsible, as appropriate (supra paras. 68, 69, 81,83 and 84). Even though Guatemala was one of the first States to ratify the Convention of Belém do Pará, owing to these historical reasons, violence against women has remained invisible, a situation that is reflected in the failure to investigate murders from a gender perspective, because the death of women is investigated as simple homicide, keeping such acts in impunity. In addition, there are no official statistics on gender-based offenses before 2008 that allow the situation of women to be made visible, so that the State authorities are made aware of the problem and adopt the necessary public policies to combat this type of act. 224. Furthermore, regarding the alleged failure to sanction the public officials responsible for the irregularities in the processing of the investigation, in some of the previous sections, the Court has already considered the said irregularities or negligence in the investigations, so that this allegation has been examined, and it unnecessary to rule in this regard, C. Conclusion 225. Based on the above, the Court finds that, despite the evidence that María Isabel’s murder could have been committed for reasons of gender, the investigation was not conducted with a gender perspective; it has also been proved that there was a lack of due diligence and that it included actions of a discriminatory nature. The investigation has greatly exceeded a reasonable time and the initial investigative stage is still underway. In addition, as the State has acknowledged, the lack of diligence in the case was linked to the inexistence of norms and protocols for investigating this type of incident. Consequently, the Court concludes that the domestic investigation has not ensured the access to justice of the next of kin of María Isabel Veliz Franco, and this constitutes a violation of the rights to judicial guarantees and to judicial protection recognized in Articles 8(1) and 25(1) of the American Convention, and the right to equality before the law established in Article 24 of 333 Cf. Case of González et al. (“Cotton Field”), supra, para. 368, and Case of Osorio Rivera and family members, supra, para. 228.