BUENOS AIRES – Sexual violence in Argentina has left at least 82 women dead during the first six months of this year, according to statistics released Sunday by an organization that protects and defends women’s rights.

“We want to warn that this is not about isolated (criminal) acts but rather a social, political and human rights problem,” said Fabiana Tuñez, the coordinator for La Case del Encuentro, in a statement.

“The reality also indicates that so far in July there were 21 cases of ‘femicides,’ which gives us an average of two women per day that are murdered in Argentina,” she said.

During last year, 208 women were murdered by their husbands, boyfriends, lovers, former boyfriends, neighbors, relatives or unknown people, presumably men, who also perpetrated sexual violence upon them.

Tuñez said that because of the lack of government statistics, the women’s rights association conducted its own study starting in 2008 on the basis of information from two national news agencies and 43 national and provincial daily newspapers.

Besides the 82 murders of women so far this year, there are nine victims who were hospitalized in critical condition and another nine cases of alleged sexual violence that are being investigated, said La Casa del Encuentro.

Between last October and June, 5,509 people complained that they had been affected by incidents of domestic violence, according to statistics compiled by the Domestic Violence Office created in 2008 by Argentina’s Supreme Court.

Some 83 percent of the complaints filed between October and June were made by women, according to data from the Judicial Information Center’s network.

The statistics also reflect that 73 percent of the complaints concern cases of violence between members of couples and ex-couples, about 21 percent correspond to children who are accusing parents and 6 percent involve other types of relationships.