A report from Amnesty International from Guatemala: Amnesty’s latest report cites police figures which show that 229 women and girls were killed in Guatemala in the first six months of 2006. Many of the murders were exceptionally brutal, with the victims suffering sexual violence, mutilation and dismemberment. Amnesty says that it knows of only two convictions out of 665 murders of women in 2005. The Guatemalan government appears to be slow in investigating. Up to 70% of murders of women are not investigated and no arrests are made in 97% of cases, Amnesty says. Contrast this to the response of the Thai government when a British girl was murdered on a beach in Phuket – in this case, the police may have appeared to be over zealous, and maybe their motives were influenced by the cost of adverse publicity to the country’s tourism coffers, but even so. A similar problem is happening in Mexico with the killing of street boys and girls.