New map of murders of transgender people around the world

Source: TGEU

Trans Murder Monitoring launched an interactive map for IDAHOT 2011

The new interactive map for the first time visualises a great portion of the 604 reported murders of trans people that the TMM has documented since January 2008.

For each case, details regarding name, age, location, cause of death, circumstances of the killing and a follow-up are shown if available.

Please note that where there are multiple cases in one location (e.g. two killings in Rome), only one is shown due to technical restrictions.

In the first four and a half months of 2011, 55 reported murders of trans people have been registered

Sadly, from 1 January to 17 May 2011, the TMM already registered 55 murders in 19 countries, with the majority in Brazil (20); Mexico (5); and Argentina, Colombia, the Philippines and the USA (3). Further murders have been reported in Bolivia, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Guatemala, Honduras, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Pakistan, Poland, Russia, Turkey and Venezuela. These are only preliminary results, and the numbers are likely to grow even larger during the course of the year. While often the actual circumstances of the killings remain obscure due to lacking investigation and reports, many of the cases documented involve an extreme extent of aggression, including torture and mutilation. Many cases are not investigated properly by the authorities.

The murder of the 21 year-old Jessica, in the Colombian city of Bogota, is among the most recent shocking cases

On 27 March, 2011, the travesti and sex worker Jessica was stabbed on the street and the perpetrator fled. Colleagues brought Jessica to the hospital, where she was however not provided immediate treatment. Her colleagues say Jessica died in hospital due to this failure.

Apart from Jessica, the ever-growing TMM archive has registered numerous cases in 49 different countries since 2008, most of which hardly received any public attention at all.

In total, the preliminary TMM results show more than 600 reports of murdered trans people in almost 50 countries since January 2008

The new update reveals that since January 2008, 2 homicides of trans people were reported in in Africa (2008: 1, 2009: 1), 50 in Asia (2008: 11, 2009: 14, 2010: 17, Jan.-May 2011: 8), 41 in Europe (2008: 11, 2009: 17, 2010: 9, Jan.-May 2011: 4), 465 Central and South America (2008: 92; 2009: 162; 2010: 171; Jan.-May 2011: 40), 42 in the USA (2008: 17, 2009: 14, 2010: 8, 2011: 3), and 4 in Oceania (2008: 3, 2009: 1).

These figures are composed of the following countries:

• Africa: Algeria (1) and South Africa (1)
• Asia: Azerbaijan (2), China (6), India (7), Indonesia (4), Iran (1), Iraq (3), Malaysia (6), Pakistan (8), Philippines (9), Republic of Korea (1), Singapore (1), and Thailand (2)
• Central and South America: Argentina (11), Bolivia (6) Brazil (247), Chile (2), Colombia (29), Costa Rica (3), Cuba (1), the Dominican Republic (9), Ecuador (9), El Salvador (6), Guatemala (29), Honduras (28), Jamaica (1), Mexico (32), Nicaragua (2), Paraguay (3), Peru (7), Puerto Rico (7), Uruguay (1), and Venezuela (32)
• Europe: Albania (1), Germany (2) Italy (13), Poland (1), Portugal (1), Russia (1), Spain (3), Serbia (1), Turkey (15), and UK (3)
• North America: USA (42)
• Oceania: Australia (1), Fiji (1), New Caledonia (1) and New Zealand (1)

Yet, we know, even these high numbers are only a fraction of the real figures; the truth is much worse. While in several Middle and South American countries forms of reporting and monitoring exist, in most African countries this is not the case, making it extremely difficult to gain knowledge of murdered trans people.