Gender-related killings of women and girls in Argentina rose last year to 322, or an average of nearly one a day, the National Ombudsman’s Office reported.

The new data come as the country’s Congress is debating a controversial reform of gender laws promoted by right-wing president Javier Milei, who has already eliminated the government’s Ministry of Women and Gender Diversity.

The number of femicides is “alarming” and exceeds even the total from 2020, when 295 women and girls were killed, said the ombudsman’s report published Friday night.

Femicides in 2023 orphaned some 200 children, according to the new statistics. In three out of four cases, there was a pre-existing relationship between the victim and the perpetrator.

“Cultural practices continue to be sexist and patriarchal,” Fernanda Tarico of the non-government organization Shalom Bait, which supports victims of gender violence, told Agence France-Presse.