The Congress of Guatemala has passed a law that now requires authorities to immediately begin searching for women who are reported to be missing. The new bill aims to reduce the abduction of women into domestic servitude or forced prostitution.
"It's the creation of (a law enabling the) coordination of institutions to ensure the prompt search for missing women," Congresswoman Sandra Mora stated, according to 20 Minutos. She explained that the law seeks to prevent women from sexual exploitation, saying, "if the search is not conducted immediately, women [can be] forced into human trafficking rings."
"When you report a missing girl in Guatemala, the police tell you that she ran away with her boyfriend. Under this new law, that explanation will have to change. The search will start immediately," Mora concluded.
Guatemala is considered to be a transit country toward the north for migrants, as well as human and drug trafficking networks.
The new bill will require several government agencies to collaborate in searches and will compel authorities to create a DNA database of cases and a registry of convicted offenders. The law's approval also comes after the creation of a special prosecutor's office for the investigation of crimes against women and girls in the country, which is expected to be in full operation by March, as Attorney General Thelma Aldana said last week, TeleSUR reported.
Alongside its neighboring countries of El Salvador, Honduras and Mexico, Guatemala has one of the highest rates of femicide in the world. At least two women are violently killed in the country every day, with an estimate that more than 5,000 women and girls were killed from 2008 to 2015, according to U.N. Women - Guatemala. Within the past two years, at least 4,500 women were reported as having disappeared, The Latin Correspondent reported.
The bill was voted in with 89 votes from the 158 Congress deputies. It will become an official law upon publication in the Diario de Centroamérica, Guatemala's newspaper of public record.
