More than half of the killings of women linked to gender-based violence and taken to sentencing in Buenos Aires City over the past decade were formally classified as femicides, new judicial data shows
The seventh follow-up report on femicides, transfemicides and other gender-based murders in Buenos Aires City – produced by the Prosecution Unit Specialising in Violence against Women (UFEM in Spanish) – reveals that, between 2015 and 2024, 53 percent of murders of women that reached a sentencing stage and showed signs of gender-based violence were categorised as femicides.
Across that period, investigators in the capital handled 192 cases covering 199 killings of women. UFEM found that 62 percent of all cases carried indicators of gender-based violence, prompting their classification as femicides during the investigative stage.
The worst year was 2020, at the height of the Covid-19 lockdown, when restrictions left many victims unable to seek help or leave violent homes. Prosecutors and women’s rights groups have since warned that gender-based violence is again on the rise.
As of July 2025, the Fiscales portal reported 96 convictions and 10 acquittals. The average gap between the crime and the opening of a trial is nine months, while cases that move into the oral stage take just over two years – around 26 months – to conclude.
Yet final judgments remain rare. The report notes that 84 percent of rulings were appealed before the National Criminal Cassation Court, significantly slowing the process. Cases that ran through every judicial instance – up to and including the Supreme Court – took an average of seven years to be completed.
In the 96 sentencing judgments recorded, courts imposed penalties on 105 offenders convicted of intentional killings of women. Sixty-three percent received life sentences, underscoring the gravity with which the courts treat confirmed femicides.
– TIMES/NA
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