Femicide 2013 it was reported to have the highest rate of femicide in Colombia. It was reported that there were 144 homicides in Cali, in 2013; this is significantly higher than in other major Colombian cities. Macho culture has been a key factor to the rapid escalation of femicide in Latin America in general. Inequality of power between men and women, as well as the lack of resources provided for women, prevent them from seeking help and safety. On July 6, 2015, Colombia passed a new law stating femicide is a legally defined crime with 20 to 50 years' jail time.
Femicide motive is not always empirically possible to be determined, and so must be removed from the qualification for femicide in order to gather data. On the other hand, authors Desmond Ellis and Walter Dekesedery take a different approach by viewing the definition for femicide as "the intentional killing of females by males". These feminists require that femicide always be intentional unlike the inclusion of covert femicide in Diana Russell's definition. Most of these definitions imply that the perpetrator of femicide is a man, but South Asian feminists differ in their definition stating that femicide is "the intentional killing of females