Transfemicide in El Salvador: Zashy del Cid, 27-year-old activist, is murdered
Zashy, a 27-year-old Salvadoran trans woman and member of the Perla de Oriente Collective, was shot in the back on Sunday.
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Early Sunday morning, Zashy Zuely del Cid Velásquez, a 27-year-old transgender woman, was working as a prostitute in San Miguel when she was shot in the back, sustaining critical injuries. She called for help and was rushed to San Juan de Dios Hospital in San Miguel, 138 kilometers east of the capital. Doctors pronounced her dead minutes later, stating that the bullet had pierced a lung and caused internal bleeding.
Zashy was a makeup artist and owned a beauty salon. She also worked as a sex worker, according to Venus Nolasco, president of the Perla de Oriente Collective. “She was attacked from behind; there are no leads on the perpetrators. She called for help and was taken to the hospital, but she died from choking on her own blood,” the activist told Presentes.
Zashy was part of the Perla de Oriente Collective. The organization works to promote the rights of the LGBTI population in eastern Venezuela. Among its programs, they have designed emergency protocols to address reports of attacks.
Zashy had received threats
According to other sources who asked not to be identified for security reasons, Zashy had also received threats. It is suspected that these threats came from one of the factions within the Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13) gang, an organization that operates in the area. Gangs in El Salvador have a patriarchal structure that is intolerant of diverse populations, causing forced displacement in the territories they control, extortion, and murder.
“What I know is that it is in the investigation phase. At the moment there are no arrests,” an officer from the local police station told Presentes, without giving further details.
Between 2016 and 2017, three transgender women were murdered in the city of San Miguel, according to LGBTI rights organizations. “Several of our friends have been killed, and the crimes have gone unpunished,” Venus denounced.
Transphobia increases on weekends
The study “ Prejudice Knows No Borders ,” presented by the LGBTI Violence-Free Observatory, identified that Saturdays and Sundays are when the most crimes against this population are committed. It also indicated that 80 percent of the bodies of those murdered were found in public spaces and private residences.
In 2020, four murders were reported in the Central American country. This represents a 51 percent decrease compared to the same period of the previous year. Three of the victims were transgender women and one was a gay man, while nine murders were reported in 2019.
No justice for victims of hate crimes
In 2015, the Salvadoran Congress amended the penal code so that crimes committed due to discrimination based on gender identity and sexual orientation would be prosecuted as hate crimes and could be punished with 30 to 60 years in prison. To date, no case has resulted in a conviction for a hate crime.
According to the Solidarity Association to Promote Human Development (ASPIDH Arcoiris Trans), from 1993 to date some 600 trans women have been murdered, but very few cases have been investigated and prosecuted.
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