A/HRC/35/23/Add.1 (636 cases),60 and a 281 per cent increase in disappearances of women between 2008 (91 cases) and 2013 (347 cases).61 69. The situation is compounded by gang activity. Women are often killed to settle gang disputes, or subjected to rape, torture and mutilation. 70. The Special Rapporteur on violence against women noted a culture of impunity and lack of accountability for these crimes. Despite the establishment in 2013 of femicide as a specific offence, very few cases have been tried under this offence. 62 71. In 2013, the Unit for the Investigation of Crimes against Women’s Lives of the Office of the Special Prosecutor for Women, which handled femicides and violent deaths of women, was transferred to the Section on Investigation of Violent Deaths of Women of the Office of the Special Prosecutor for Crimes against Life to ensure a gender dimension to investigations. The Office of the Special Prosecutor for Crimes against Life adopted a manual for such investigations and trained justice operators nationally. Critics voiced concern that this transfer would result in a loss of a gender perspective for criminal investigations.63 H. Children and young people 72. The context of violence and insecurity in Honduras puts children and adolescents in a particularly vulnerable position. In total 21,710 children suffered violent deaths between January 2010 and March 2016. 64 A civil society organization reported 79.26 deaths per month between January 2014 and December 2015.65 While in most cases the perpetrators remained unidentified and unpunished, reports indicated that security forces had been involved in the killing of at least seven children and adolescents between June and December 2015.66 73. Children living in areas under the influence of maras are placed in particular distress as they are both harassed, threatened and attacked by gang members, and stigmatized, discriminated against and mistreated by law enforcement forces, who often regard them as potential criminals or gang members.67 74. Young students are also frequently targets of violence. At least 1,183 students were killed in Honduras between 2010 and 2016, of whom 52 per cent had been secondary school students and 13.5 per cent had been university students. 68 Young people are particularly targeted for their participation in protests and other forms of public demonstrations. In March 2015, Honduran society was shocked to learn about the killing of four young people who had participated in student protests. One of the victims, a 13-yearold girl, had been seen expressing her demands on television days before her body was found in a bag with signs of torture. 75. Civil society organizations reported a worrying increase in cases where bodies were found with signs of torture, strangled to death, in plastic bags, tied with ropes or wrapped in 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 14 See Situation of Human Rights in Honduras, p. 52. See A/HRC/29/27/Add.1, para. 19. Ibid, paras. 9 and 76. See United Nations Development Programme, United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women and USAID, Violencia y seguridad ciudadana: una mirada desde la perspectiva de género (Tegucigalpa, 2015), available in Spanish from hn.undp.org/content/dam/honduras/docs/publicaciones/diagnosticogeneroyviolencia.pdf. See Observatory on Violence, Special Bulletin No. 42 (June 2016), p. 1. Available from www.iudpas.org/pdf/Boletines/Especiales/BEP_Ed42.pdf. See Casa Alianza, “Monthly report: December 2016”, p. 31. Available in Spanish from www.casaalianza.org.hn/images/documentos/Comunicados/CAH.2015/Informes.Mensuales.2015/12.%20infor me%20mensual%20diciembre%202015_cah.pdf. Ibid, p. 33. See Situation of Human Rights in Honduras, p. 48. See Observatory on Violence, Special Bulletin No. 42, p. 1.