Suspect Charged in Death of Common-Law Wife in Baja's First 'Femicide' Case Sandra Dibble - U-T San Diego
go to original April 6, 2015

José Roberto Hernández Aviles, accused of femicide in the death of his common-law wife, Lidia Montealegre. (PGJE)

After years of suffering beatings and psychological abuse, Lidia Montealegre had summoned the courage to leave the father of her three children, police said. But last month, she agreed to see him again – and ended up dead.

José Roberto Hernández Aviles, her common-law-husband of 14 years, confessed to strangling Montealegre in a Tijuana motel room, according to state prosecutors. Last Wednesday, Hernández became the first person charged with femicide under a Baja California law that seeks to prosecute men who violently kill women because of their gender.

Feminist groups in Baja California are hailing the prosecution as an important step in protecting women in the state.

“It is the first case where the crime is correctly categorized,” said Rebeca Maltos, who heads Gente Diversa, nonprofit group based in Mexicali. “Femicide is more than homicide, because it involves misogyny and bad faith.”

The term “femicide,” also known as feminicide, was coined in 1976 by a U.S. sociologist, Diana Russell, and first drew attention in Mexico starting in the 1990s with the killings of women in Ciudad Juarez. Since then, Mexico and other countries across Latin America have enacted laws against femicide, including Guatemala, Chile, El Salvador, Peru, Nicaragua and Argentina. Brazil last month became the latest to follow suit, with the signing of a femicide law by President Dilma Rousseff.

Read the rest at U-T San Diego

According to an international organization dedicated to reporting crimes against women, six women are murdered in Mexico every day. (CCTV America)

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