Violence against women in the Dominican Republic is no longer a statistic: it is a national emergency. More than 700 women murdered from January 2020 to May 2026. Behind each number there is a mother, a daughter, a sister, a life interrupted by violence and a country that still cannot confront forcefully enough one of its deepest social tragedies.
The Dominican Republic is going through a silent crisis that is repeated with terrifying frequency. While the country discusses economics, politics or institutional reforms, hundreds of women continue to die within their own homes, many times at the hands of those who one day promised to love and protect them.
The official data is devastating. The Compendium of Statistics of Women Who Died in Conditions of Violence, published by the National Statistics Office (ONE), documents that between 2020 and 2024, 708 women died in conditions of violence, and that 77.5% of the cases were linked to gender and domestic violence. Translated into everyday reality: for five years, a woman was murdered approximately every two and a half days in the country.
The most critical year was 2022, with 163 victims. Although 2025 showed a slight statistical reduction, the relief was short-lived. Until May 2026, there was already a 36.4% increase in intimate femicides compared to the same period of the previous year. The violence returned with force and revealed that the problem never disappeared; it simply remained contained under a fragile truce.
Another aspect that generates concern is that indicated by the OPD-FUNGLODE report, which warns that during 2022 and 2023, for the first time, the number of homicides of women not officially classified as femicides exceeded the cases classified under that category. This reality has raised alarm among experts and human rights organizations, who consider that the real dimension of violence against women could be partially made invisible by technical criteria or limitations in the legal classification of cases.
But perhaps the most alarming fact is not the number of murdered women, but the silence that surrounds many of these tragedies. According to official reports, only four of the thirty women murdered in the first months of 2026 had formally denounced their attackers. 87% died without effective protection from the State.
This reveals a deeply painful structural failure: thousands of women continue to feel afraid of reporting, distrust of institutions, or emotional and economic dependence on their attackers. And when they finally seek help, the system is often late.
A deeply regrettable example is the case of Esmeralda Moronta, which shook the country. She was murdered by her ex-partner while leaving a gender violence care unit, where she had precisely gone in search of protection. He left two orphaned children. Her story painfully summarizes the national drama that many Dominican women experience: victims who try to escape violence, but who end up finding a system incapable of responding with the speed and effectiveness that such a delicate situation demands.
The figures also show repetitive patterns. More than 70% of femicides occur inside the home. Many crimes are motivated by jealousy, emotional separation or obsessive control. Firearms and knives predominate as instruments of death. And the ages of the victims range from girls to elderly women.
Femicidal violence does not begin on the day of the murder. It starts much earlier: with excessive control, insults, emotional manipulation, threats and normalized aggression within the home. Therefore, confronting this problem requires much more than public condemnation after each tragedy.
The Dominican Republic needs a comprehensive and permanent national policy. It is urgent to strengthen shelters, expand free psychological care, guarantee quick and effective protection orders, create monitoring systems for repeat offenders and establish emotional education and prevention programs in schools.
It is also essential to work on mental health, combat sexist culture and develop permanent community campaigns that help identify early signs of violence.
Because each feminicide represents the collective failure of a society.
And because no number can get us used to the pain of losing another woman.
Please, not one more.
