In the past six years, more than 150 women in Puerto Rico have been killed by their intimate partners.

This year, there have been at least 21 femicides,

including the killings of Keishla Rodriguez and Andrea Ruiz,

high-profile cases that have renewed calls to hold accountable a system

that fails to protect survivors.

Gender-based violence is not unique to the island,

but what's happening there is a window into what happens the world over.

When I ask one of my best friends who lives in Puerto Rico, who could help us understand what is happening, why it's happening, and what we can each do to combat gender-based violence?

She recommended Tanya Rosario Mendez.

Tanya is the executive director, Thayer Salud, a feminist organization on the island,

that works to tackle inequality in everything from health care to economic growth.

And Tanya argues that inequality is central to understanding violence against women.

Tanya, there is a renewed focus on Femmicide in Puerto Rico, but this is of course, sadly not a new phenomenon. What is your earliest memory of stories like this? It's actually a story my grandmother told me.

When she was very young, she married someone else, not my grandfather.

So she's this young wife.

She has two small girls and her husband used to lock her up in the house. She told me this story and she was not being,

she was not even resentful. She was just telling me this story about her first husband and how

he would leave to work and leave her locked up.

She was saying how silly he was so jealous.

Stuff like that, right? So for me, I was terrified at the idea that someone else could lock me an adult in a house because he was jealous,

someone would look at me or for me it was outrageous, but I don't remember voicing that to her

because she was so matter of fact about it.

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