Warnings from feminist associations, demonstrations, choreographies: whatever the method, the mobilizations have multiplied in Latin America on the occasion of the United Nations (UN) International Day for the elimination of violence against women , Wednesday November 25.
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36.52% increase in feminicides in Venezuela
Some 228 feminicides occurred in 2020 in Venezuela, 36.52% more than the previous year, announced a specialized association. “We have observed an alarming increase”, Aimeé Zambrano, coordinator of the independent organization Monitor de Feminicidios, linked to the digital platform Utopix, told Agence France-Presse (AFP).
According to Monitor159 of those 228 murders occurred after containment was introduced in the country in mid-March. Dozens of women demonstrated in front of the Caracas courthouse and other public buildings, chanting, among other things: “We are murdered, we women! “
The Venezuelan government stopped giving official feminicide figures in 2016, after announcing 121 for 2015.
The Mexican government mobilized
For her part, Mexican Interior Minister Olga Sanchez has pledged to end the “Machismo that kills” some 3,800 women each year in the country.
At the same time, thousands of women took to the streets in Mexico City to express their outrage at this endemic violence in Mexico. The demonstrators concentrated around the Monument to the Revolution before marching towards the Zocalo, the main square in central Mexico City, where the Presidential Palace and Cathedral are located.
Emphasizing the need to “No longer reproduce the macho and patriarchal cultural system” deeply rooted in Mexico, the Minister of the Interior considered that this country has a “Historical debt” towards women. “We owe a historic debt to women, especially to victims of violence, and we cannot allow impunity”, she hammered.
According to figures from the National Institute of Statistics, statistics also show that on average 32 girls between the ages of 10 and 14 become mothers every day as a result of sexual abuse, and that one in four has suffered violence in schools.
The impunity enjoyed by attackers in Mexico is particularly problematic since on average only half of the murders classified as feminicides are condemned. In some Mexican states, impunity has even reached 98%, according to a report presented Wednesday during the daily morning conference of President Andrés Manuel Lopez Obrador. On this occasion, the Mexican president stressed that the phenomenon of aggression against women comes from “Conditions of poverty and economic inequality”.
A performance in Santiago de Chile
Some 2,000 women also gathered in central Santiago de Chile to rehearse the performance A rapist on your way (A violador in you camino, in Spanish). Four members of the feminist collective Las Tesis have renewed this choreography, created a year ago by this collective and since repeated by thousands of women around the world.
This time dressed in black overalls, and not red like a year ago, they managed to repeat this performance only once before the police dispersed them with water hoses.
Fireworks were also set off and the demonstrators managed to release the lyrics to the song. A rapist on your way, which accompanies this performance, before the police intervene and completely evacuate Plaza Italia, emblematic place of the demonstrations in the center of the Chilean capital. Earlier Wednesday, women’s groups protested in central Santiago demanding an end to male chauvinist violence. Barricades were set on fire and a store was looted.
