Colombia would have suffered a setback of almost a decade in terms of homicide reduction, or at least this is reflected in the figures from the National Institute of Legal and Forensic Medicine, which indicates that last year, for this crime in The country reached 13,032 cases between January and December, a figure practically similar to that of 2013, which closed with 14,294 murders, and lower than that of 2014, which was 12,598.
According to the coroner, in 2021 there was an increase of 15 percent compared to the immediately previous year, with approximately 1,700 more homicides than in 2020, in which 11,326 violent deaths were recorded in that modality.
In 2019, the year before the pandemic and the confinements that it entailed, 11,880 homicides had been registered. In 2018 there were 12,130, 2017 had 11,373, 2016 closed with 11,532, and 2015 with 11,585, which showed minimal increases in this crime.
On the other hand, last year in terms of gender, men, as is regularly the case, were the ones who most violently took their lives. in the country with 12,050 deaths, while there were 978 homicides where the victims were women.
However, on this issue there was a worrying increase, since there were 8 percent more murders of women with 80 more cases compared to 2020. However, it was a lower figure compared to 2019, when 1,001 murders of women were recorded.
In 2018 there were 1,043 homicides of women, in 2017 there were 1,002 women murdered, 997 in 2016, in 2015 970 were reported, 1,158 in 2014, and in 2013 there were 1,163.
Regarding the ages, also on a regular basis, the majority of homicide cases in 2021 occurred among those over 18 years of age with 12,461 cases. The remaining 567 corresponded to minors.
Nevertheless, this meant a slight reduction of 1 percent compared to 2020, when 575 deaths of children and adolescents were recorded.
In Legal Medicine They registered 65,450 cases of interpersonal violence in 2021, while in the immediately previous year there were 58,512 cases, that is, fights between citizens increased by 11 percent.
During 2021, at the Institute They carried out 21,434 medical-legal examinations with which cases of sexual abuse were determined. While in 2020 18,054 were practiced, that is to say that there was an increase of 18 percent.
In these cases of 2021, women, with 18,726 cases, were the ones who most went to Legal Medicine for this crime. Of these, 15,120 were minors, that is, 80 percent of the cases. Among men, 2,708 examinations were carried out to determine sexual abuse, 2,414 of them corresponded to minors.
Finally, in the Legal Medicine figures, 2,595 suicides were also recorded, of which 2,320 occurred among adults and 159 occurred among those under 18 years of age. In terms of gender, men, as is regularly the case, were the ones who took their own lives the most with 2,101 cases, while 494 cases were recorded for women.
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