‘A whole spectrum of hatred’: women face increased violence in Milei’s Argentina as rights are eroded | Femicide

IIn the week before her murder, Fernanda Soledad Yramain was awake at night to listen to while a motorcycle surrounded the house where she was hiding. “She kept saying” it’s him “,” recalls Daniella Viscarra, Soledad’s sister-in-law with whom she had sought refuge in the Tucumán campaign. “She was afraid all the time.”

A month earlier, in September 2024, Soledad, 29, had ended a relationship with his boyfriend, Francisco Timoteo Saldaño. They had been together since the age of 14 and he was 35 years old and shared three children. During the last year of their relationship, Saldaño had become violent.

“She started going with bruises on her arms, crying. He was holding a knife in his throat and said he would kill her, ”explains Sandra Yramain, aunt de Soledad.

Together, Sandra and Soledad went to the police station to request protection. “They said that” these things take time, “says Sandra. “But no one has ever called.”

During the following week, Soledad returned to the police station three times more. “She was sure he would kill her,” said Daniella. “So she continued to try.”

Less than a day after her fourth – and final – visit the police to protect her, Saldaño stabbed Soledad to death with a butcher knife, before committing suicide.

“Soledad did everything she was supposed to do,” says Sandra. “But, because the police got on, they were cut in half.”

While Argentina was once celebrated as a bastion for women’s rights in Latin America, now, in the midst of an increase in populism under the far right chief Javier Milei, the protections for women are quickly eroded. Women’s rights groups warn that more women like Soledad could die accordingly.

Shortly after taking power in December 2023, Milei dissolved the under-secretariat for protection against gender violence and closed the ministry of women. “For the first time in almost 40 years, Argentina has no dedicated institution to prevent, punish and eradicate gender -based violence,” explains Mariela Belski, executive director of Amnesty International Argentina.

The administration has also reduced programs to fight against gender violence. The Acompañar program, which provided financial and psychological assistance to victims of sex -based violence, was radically funded, while the 144 emergency hotlines lost 42% of its staff in July 2024.

“The government turns back to women faced with violence,” says Belski.

In November, Argentina was the only country to vote against a resolution of the United Nations General Assembly to prevent and eliminate violence against women and girls. Two months later, the administration of Milei went further, committing to strike the aggravating factor of the femicide, defined as when a woman dies in the hands of a man on the basis of her sex, of the Criminal Code – a decision which led to a rapid condemnation of human rights groups.

Belski says that the deletion of the legal definition “would weaken the state’s ability to prevent and punish these crimes”.

Now, human rights experts warn that Milei’s rhetoric is gaining ground on a national scale.

In Tucumán, a conservative province, lawyers and defenders says that the legal protections for women are already dismantled.

“Tucumán is one of the places where the situation aggravates,” explains Myriam Bregman, a socialist leader. “He follows the political line of the national government, to reduce the programs to protect women’s rights, which were already very rare.”

Soledad Deza, Tucumán’s lawyer supporting Yramain’s family and the president of Fundación Mujeres por mujeres (Women for Women Foundation), shared data showing a sharp drop in protective orders published by the court since Milei took office.

Between January and September 2024, according to information obtained from the authorities by Deza and shared with The Guardian, the family courts of Tucumán made 4,856 protective orders, while the criminal courts issued 754. In comparison, in all 2023, these figures were 7,549 and 2448 respectively.

Deza says that the women in the province had trouble accessing support due to funding reductions and that the judicial system fails to investigate their reports.

The organizations responsible for the application of laws have also been slow to respond, explains Sofia Quiroga, of the international equality of the organization of women’s rights. “Worried, Tucumán police ceased to investigate the reasons why protective orders are necessary first,” she said.

Luciana Belén Gramaglio, Tucumán feminist lawyer, says that the provincial government had adopted, “the regressive and stifling policies promoted by Milei”. At the beginning of 2025, she said, the Tucumán government reduced the number of positions of proceedings dedicated to investigating cases of sexist violence and sexual abuse from seven to four.

Gramaglio suggests that almost half of the cases entering the judicial system are linked to violence against women. “How then, is the reduction in prosecution positions justified?”

The weekend that Soledad was killed, two other women in the province of Tucumán were murdered; Both cases officially classified as femicides. The official data of the National Mediator’s office revealed that 295 cases of femicide were reported nationally between January 1 and December 31, 2024, or one every 30 hours. The organization of women of Mumalá reported a 15% increase in femicides in the first four months of 2025, compared to the same period a year earlier.

Lawyers and defenders also warn against an increasing story that women make allegations of sexist violence. In 2024, senator Carolina Losada, with the support of the National Minister of Justice Mariano Cúneo Lebarona, presented a bill aimed at increasing the sanctions for false accusations of violence based on sex.

“The credibility of the victims is challenged by the accounts of the Milei administration. These stories have released a whole spectrum of hatred and obstacles, ”explains Deza. “It is simply an indirect threat, to discourage women from reporting crimes.”

Mariela Labozzetta, head of the specialized prosecutor’s unit on violence against women, said that despite funding for financing, the legal system and the prosecutor’s offices through Argentina continue to operate. But, she adds that “to prevent the risks encountered by victims from aggravating, support programs are necessary and these have been eliminated”.

Deza says that because Argentina “withdrew the programs to prevent gender violence”, women find themselves with little appeal but to remain “hypervigilant”. She filed a complaint against the Tucumán police concerning the case of Soledad and hopes that the criminal justice system investigates the reasons why her calls for help remained unanswered.

The state of Tucumán and the police did not respond to requests for comments, any more than the Milei administration.

For Soledad’s family, the government’s proposal to eliminate femicide from the Criminal Code was a new shock. “I only hope that her death was not in vain,” says Sandra. “And that no other woman is killed because the authorities have not taken control.”