Growing up in Costa Rica, Montserrat Sagot witnessed her mother be psychologically and verbally abused by her father as a teenager. The violence had a devastating effect on her mother and on (.)
Globally, six women are killed every hour by men. During the Covid-19 crisis, the numbers of women facing sexual and physical violence increased even further, according to the United Nations.
In Algeria, the reality is no different. During the pandemic the levels of violence experienced by women raised an alarm across society. The organisation Femicides Algeria recorded 75 murders of women in 2019, 54 in 2020, and already nine so far this year. Furthermore, the government registered 7,000 complaints of violence against women last year. The reality is likely to be much worse, given that domestic violence so often goes unreported across the board.
The tragic death of 19-year-old Chaima last year sparked outcry across Algeria. The young woman was beaten, raped, murdered, and her body was burned and abandoned in a deserted petrol station in the town of Thenia. Her killer was known to the police because she had filed an official complaint against him after he raped her when she wa