Shanquella Robinson’s death is being investigated as a femicide, a crime that only 16 countries recognize despite gender-based violence being a global issue.

• 25-year-old Shanquella Robinson was killed while on vacation in Mexico with people she knew.
• Prosecutors are investigating her death as femicide — or a gender-based homicide.
• The United States does not differentiate femicide from homicide.

The death of 25-year-old Shanquella Robinson on October 29, while she was on vacation with six others in Mexico, stunned the US.

Robinson, who previously attended Winston-Salem State University, an HBCU in North Carolina, was only in San José del Cabo, Mexico, for a day before losing her life.

The people she went to Mexico with, whose names have not officially been released, claimed she died of alcohol poisoning. But, in early November, videos surfaced on the internet of her being beaten while she was naked.  A voice in the background can be heard saying, “Quella, can you at least fight back?”

An autopsy released on November 10 revealed that her cause of death was a “severe spinal cord injury and atlas luxation,” or, simply put, a broken neck and a cracked spine.

Cries for justice echoed among Black social media users, garnering more attention to her untimely killing.