Nadia Vera’s murder highlights the danger facing female activists in Mexico and the extent to which those guilty of crimes against them are acting with impunity

Nadia Vera believed in change. The 32-year-old social activist was a passionate defender of human rights through the arts. She wrote poems, staged dance workshops and theatre productions, and participated in street protests to demand political and social change.

Vera and four others were murdered in her apartment in Mexico City on 31 July in an attack that has put human rights defenders across the country on red alert.

She was raped, tortured and shot in the head alongside her friend and campaigning journalist Rubén Espinosa, 31. Both had fled the state of Veracruz following threats and intimidation, which they had publicly blamed on the state governor.

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Three other women, all treated largely as an afterthought by local media and authorities, were also killed. Yesenia Quiroz, 18, a student makeup artist, and Mile Virginia Martín, 30, a Colombian hairdresser, were Vera’s flatmates; Alejandra Negrete, a 40-year-old mother of three, was cleaning the apartment at the time of the attack.

The killings have sparked a wave of protest and international outrage, focused largely on the escalating violence against journalists in Mexico, especially in Veracruz. WIth a total of 13 murders since 2011, Veracruz has become the most dangerous place in Latin American to be a journalist.

But female activists and rights defenders are also under attack in Mexico and across the region amid almost total impunity for the perpetrators of crimes against them. Vera was the 36th women’s rights defender – community leaders, social activists and journalists – to be murdered in Mexico since 2010, according to the National Network of Women Human Rights Defenders of Mexico (RNDDHM). She was the third victim from Veracruz. However, the most dangerous place by far is Guerrero, the state where 43 student teachers disappeared last September after being attacked by drug cartel hitmen and corrupt police. Nine women’s rights defenders have been murdered in the state since 2010.

The problem isn’t confined to Mexico: at least 20 women were killed in the same period in the dangerous triangle of Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador amid a toxic mix of gender violence, organised crime, corruption and impunity, where rights defenders are under constant threat.

In 2012 alone, 414 other attacks, including threats, psychological harassment, excessive force and sexual violence, were registered in the region, a study by the Mesoamerican Initiative of Women Human Rights Defenders found (pdf). State forces – police, soldiers, and government officials – were responsible for almost 90% of attacks.

In Mexico, those defending women’s rights, environmental campaigners and women searching for missing loved ones are most vulnerable. More than 23,000 people have disappeared since 2006, and families are often left on their own to investigate.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Demonstrators in Xalapa march to demand for justice for Alejandra Negrete, Mile Virginia Martín, Yesenia Quiroz, Nadia Vera and Rubén Espinosa. Photograph: Oscar Martinez/Reuters

In Honduras, women opposing environmentally destructive megaprojects such as hydroelectric dams, mines and palm oil plantations are under attack. Bertha Cáceres, who was recently awarded the prestigious Goldman Prize for her battle to stop the construction of a huge dam on indigenous Lenca land, has suffered threats, intimidation and wrongful arrest.

In El Salvador, two high-profile activists from the transgender community have been murdered in the past two years. The latest victim was Francela Méndez, 29, who was killed on 31 May.

“The governments of the region have failed in their duty to protect and guarantee a safe environment for people so that they can promote and defend rights without risk of reprisals,” said Marusia López Cruz, from the regional network of women human rights defenders. “The impunity in cases of assault and murder is alarming, and it’s evident that the protection mechanisms are ineffective.”

Born in the state of Chiapas, in 2001 Vera moved to Xalapa, the picturesque hilly capital of Veracruz, to study social anthropology at the state university, which has a long history of student activism. Here she campaigned against attacks on journalists and the sell-off of oil reserves, and was an active member of the Yo Soy 132 student democracy movement, whose energetic campaigns against political corruption have been a thorn in the government’s side.

Her role within that movement provoked a string of anonymous threats and violence and intimidation by local police. This forced Vera to abandon Xalapa and move to Mexico City last year, believing the capital would be a safe haven.

In November 2014, before leaving, she gave an astonishing interview for a documentary titled Veracruz (the forgotten mass grave), speaking powerfully about the huge number of disappearances in the state.

Nine months before her murder in Mexico City, Nadia Vera spoke out powerfully about disappearances in Veracruz. Photograph: Rompeviento TV

Looking directly at the camera, Vera warned that if anything happened to her or her colleagues, then Veracruz’s governor, Javier Duarte, would be to blame. “We want to make it very clear that our security is totally the state’s responsibility, because they are the ones who send people to repress us,” she said.

Atziri Ávila, coordinator of the RNDDHM, said: “Nadia’s murder shows us that there is nowhere safe left in Mexico for defenders fleeing threats or violence. That’s how serious the human rights crisis has become.”

Vera’s family have expressed their dismay at the way authorities have so far handled the case. Robbery has been publicly endorsed as the main line of inquiry – despite the extrajudicial-type killings and evidence that both Vera and Espinosa had received death threats as a result of their work.

María de la Luz Estrada, director of the National Citizens Femicide Observatory, said: “The authorities must ensure everyone involved, including the intellectual authors, face the ultimate consequences. This case has put all women defenders on red alert. It was a clear, serious message for us all.”