By Matt Malinowski, WeNews correspondent:

Safety advocates in Chile are planningnighttime marches across the country to protest the growing number ofwomen killed by domestic violence; President Michelle Bachelet hasproposed related legislation to be debated in coming weeks.

              

SANTIAGO,Chile (WOMENSENEWS)–Fifty-two Chilean women have been killed by theirhusbands or boyfriends through October and the Network Against Domesticand Sexual Violence in Chile wants the world to know about it.

The advocacy network, a Santiago-based association of 50nongovernmental organizations around Chile, is planning a series ofnighttime marches in 12 cities on Nov. 22 to draw citizens into thestreets to denounce femicide.

Even though Chile’s femicide numbers are far lower than somecountries–580 Guatemalan women were murdered in 2006 in what AmnestyInternational describes as femicides–the advocacy group is alreadyalarmed by what happened last year, when 51 Chilean women were killedin murders designated by both police authorities and human rightsgroups as femicides.

ol