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Guatemala City, December 26 (RHC) In Guatemala, an average of five Isabel Claudina alerts will be activated per day for missing women in 2023. This is evident from records that reveal the prevailing uncertainty today and the lack of a plan to end it.
According to the State Ministry, a total of 1,892 reports have been made since the beginning of January last year, with the aim of the system set up to immediately locate missing women over the age of 18.
84 percent of these alerts were deactivated after certain cases were located, while 16 (296) remained unlocated, the ministry said along with its Women Prosecutors Liaison Unit.
51.53 percent of the registered people are Ladin or mestizo, 35.12 have no defined ethnic origin and the rest belong to Garifuna, Xinca or some Mayan ethnic groups.
According to the reports, 71 percent of cases disappeared between 6:00 a.m. and 5:59 p.m. local time.
The National Civil Police warns that the first hours are crucial to protect the integrity of women reported missing.
The mechanism, enshrined in law on August 6, 2018, follows the deaths of María Isabel Veliz and Claudina Isabel Velásquez in 2001 and 2005, respectively, whose families fought for justice.
Of particular note is the need to ensure respect for women's human rights, to conduct research with a gender perspective and to protect the integrity of the disappeared and their right to life.
Analysts of the subject point out that this phenomenon, like others in Guatemala, has a direct impact on people's behavior patterns, limiting their public coexistence, recreation and movement in certain areas and at certain times. (PL)