The mysterious death of Shanquella Robinson has been the biggest topic of discussion on the internet for weeks.
Over the weekend, Mexican officials issued an arrest warrant seeking the extradition of an American “friend” of Shanquella Robinson, a young woman who accompanied Robinson to Mexico where she died within the first 24 hours of her vacation.
The arrest warrant says explicitly that Shanquella Robinson is the victim of “femicide.”
“This case is fully clarified, we even have a court order, there is an arrest warrant issued for the crime of femicide to the detriment of the victim and against an alleged perpetrator, a friend of her who is the direct aggressor,” said Mexican prosecutor Daniel de la Rosa Anaya.
“Actually it wasn’t a quarrel, but instead a direct aggression. We are carrying out all the pertinent procedures such as the Interpol alert and the request for extradition to the United States of America. It’s about two Americans, the victim, and the culprit.”
But what exactly is femicide and how does it relate to Robinson’s death?
According to Women’s Aid, femicide is defined as the murder of women because they are women, though some definitions include any murders of women or girls. Femicide is most commonly used to describe killings of women by intimate partners and family members; it has also been used to describe gender-related killings in the community. The term was introduced in the last century to not only describe gender-related killings of women, but to also bring awareness to the impact of inequality and discrimination, which in many ways is the root cause of violence against women.
Femicide in Mexico has been an increasing problem. According to Vision Of Humanity, the proportion of female homicides identified as femicides in Mexico has grown steadily in recent years. In 2021, more than a quarter of the 3,750 women killed in Mexico were classified as femicides.