The number of women being murdered in Mexico has risen sharply over the last decade amid the country’s drug war, more than wiping out two decades of gains when the rate fell by half, a new study shows. The report from Mexico’s interior department, the country’s National Women’s Institute and the UN Women agency said the annual femicide rate was 3.8 per 100,000 women in 1985 before it began a steady decline to 1.9 in 2007. From there it rose sharply to peak at 4.6 per 100,000 in 2012, tapering off in the following years and then rising again last year to 4.4. Of the 52,210 killings of women recorded over the 32-year period, nearly a third took place in the last six years, the report said.The rise in such killings coincided with Mexico’s militarised offensive against drug cartels launched in late 2006 by then-president Felipe Calderón. It also roughly tracks overall homicide trends during the period.(Theguardian)…[+]