Abstract

Although Chile has one of the lowest femicide rates in Latin America (0.5 per 100,000 inhabitants), little is known about what determines whether or not to decree a precautionary measure to prevent this crime and even less about who obtains it and which characteristics are associated with filing a complaint and getting a precautionary measure. Therefore, this research aimed to build a database based on information reported by SernamEG between 2008 and 2022 and to perform a statistical analysis of the association between complaints of intimate partner violence (IPV) and preventive measures with relevant sociodemographic variables. The majority of victims of intimate femicide in Chile do not report IPV (69.2%), which prevents the activation of state protection systems. We found that after controlling for relevant variables, ending an intimate relationship increases the chances of filing a FIV complaint by 3.06 [95% CI; pvalue < 0.001] and 4.88 the chances of obtaining a precautionary measure [95% CI; pvalue < 0.001]. Some women were murdered even though they had preventive measures, so it is recommended to focus prevention actions on women who are in an ongoing intimate relationship and to explore the judicial system in future research to understand what is behind the ruling of preventive measures.