Puerto Rico's 2021 State of Emergency on Gender-Based Violence

In 2020, Puerto Rico recorded 60 murders linked to gender violence, a 62% increase over 2019, and police logged 5,517 domestic-violence victims; a 2019 report from local advocacy groups found that on average one woman was killed every seven days on the island.
On 25 January 2021, Governor Pedro Pierluisi signed an executive order declaring a state of emergency for gender violence. It created an inter-agency advisory committee (Comité PARE), a mobile panic-button and reporting app, a new Department of Education curriculum on gender violence, updated training for prosecutors, and revised police protocols for domestic-violence calls and femicide investigations. Several months after the declaration, Puerto Rico's Financial Oversight and Management Board approved $7 million in dedicated funding for these measures.
The state of emergency expired on 30 June 2022 and was not renewed. The Comité PARE advisory council stopped meeting as an advisory body by August 2022, although a compliance officer remained in post. Femicide reporting stayed high afterward: the Puerto Rico outlet Pasquines counted 72 femicides in 2023 (65 of them direct femicides), and advocates such as the nonprofit Taller Salud described a persistent “long-term crisis” compounded by inconsistent government follow-through.
The case illustrates both the value and the limits of emergency-declaration tools for gender-based violence: rapid political recognition and initial funding, but weak institutional continuity once the formal emergency period ended.

Read the full analysis: https://pasquines.us/2023/01/23/puerto-ricos-gender-violence-problem-in-context/