Montevideo, June 5 (teleSUR-RHC)-- Following the marches against gender violence in Argentina and Uruguay, an Uruguayan state official told the press draft bill was being prepared to classify femicide as a crime.

So far in 2015, there have already been 20 women murdered as a result of gender-based violence – four more times than in Chile for instance, Director of National Institute of Women (Inmujeres) Mariela Mazzotti told press agency EFE.

Inmujeres has been promoting a series of debates about femicide r to define the concept and its judicial application from the experience of other nations that have categorized it as a crime.

Uruguay’s Attorney General Jorge Diaz told local media that “femicide” could be included as a crime into the penal code.

“There is not an autonomous concept of 'femicide,' but there is nevertheless the case of homicide under aggravated circumstances,” he explained – referring to factors that increases the severity or culpability of a criminal act.

“Gender violence is one of the main issues of public security of Uruguay, something that should ashame us as a society,” he added, “especially when the violence has been committed by state officials, using the weapon the State gave them to protect society to kill a woman.”

On Friday, a teenager was shot dead by a policeman she knew as she was walking her younger brother to school. As other policemen tried to catch him, he committed suicide.

Several Latin American countries, including Colombia, Ecuador, Bolivia and Brazil, have explicitly incorporated femicide as a specific crime in their penal codes, as opposed to classifying it as a crime of passion, which is treated as a lesser crime.