The Mexico letter
With their faces masked by a black hood and their arms loaded with food, four Mexican women enter the National Human Rights Commission (CNDH), located in the center of Mexico City. These young feminists have occupied the building since the beginning of September, supporting relatives of victims of sexual abuse, feminicides or enforced disappearances. Their mobilization quickly spread to the rest of Mexico, braving the Covid-19 epidemic to denounce the inaction of the authorities in the face of the sharp increase in gender violence.
“The CNDH is now a refuge for the victims”, explains one of the members of this group of feminists, self-proclaimed “black bloc” (black bloc), who refuses to give her name ” for security purposes “. The colonial-style facade of this independent institution, responsible for collecting complaints of human rights violations, is hung with banners demanding justice in a country where more than ten women are murdered every day. “We do not forget and do not forgive! “, one of the posters warns.
Impossible for men to enter the building. “The radicalism of the girls of the black block is the only way to make themselves heard by the authorities who are not investigating”, apologizes Imelda Orozco Martinez who does not wear a balaclava. Like this forty-something with features drawn by fatigue, a dozen mothers of victims squat the building alongside about fifty feminists. “There is the photo of my daughter, Imelda sighs, pointing to one of the posters representing the face of Dalia, 23, killed in 2018 by her husband, still at large. In 2019, 3,825 Mexican women were murdered. But only 976 cases have been recognized as feminicides.
5.4% increase in feminicides
And the scourge continues to grow with the Covid-19 epidemic: official figures show a 5.4% increase in feminicides, from January to July (566 cases), compared with the same period in 2019. As for gender violence, it increased by 24.9% (2,167 offenses from January to July). “The authorities are minimizing the crisis while the confinement – lifted since the beginning of June – has accentuated family violence”, denounces Erika Martinez, 42, whose 10-year-old daughter was raped in 2017 by her brother-in-law who remained free while awaiting trial. The 46% increase in the first half of emergency calls from abused women seems to prove him right.
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