Femicide term in its constitution. Lawmakers in this country passed Decree 22 in 2008 that defined Laws Against Femicide and Other Forms of Violence Against Women. These laws include 28 articles about prosecutable types of violence against women. They also created the Office of the Presidential Commission Against Femicide, enforcing the concept in the government, as well as an anti-femicide unit of the National police. Some results of the laws have proved encouraging, allowing many women to now report violence perpetrated against them. In the first month of 2010, a total of 27,000 women reported violence against them to the state,
Femicide and investigation can often differ based on race of the victim. According to Diana Russell and Jill Radford, lesbicide, also known as homophobic femicide, has a long history of legalized murder of lesbians in many different cultural contexts: Today, lesbianism is no longer a capital crime but it remains criminalized by many governments and condemned by most religions. Torture and murder of lesbians occurs in every part of the world, even in "developed" countries. According to Dr. Susan Hawthorne of Victoria University, "...domination is exemplified in the punishment of lesbians as outsiders in patriarchal culture..." Dr. Hawthorne goes on to