"How do you make the invisible visible? " In 2004, the filmmaker Sergio Arau answered this question in satire A Day Without a Mexican on the economic and social consequences of the sudden disappearance of all Mexicans from the United States of California after a thick fog passed. It is this same question which, sixteen years later, drives feminist collectives in a Mexico plagued by machismo and violence against women: "How can we make it clear across the country that, every day, ten women will not return home, that ten families will be heartbroken?" ", wondered, Sunday, March 8, in the columns of Vogue Mexico, Mexican actress Vanessa Bauche.
By also disappearing from public space, replied feminist activists who, on Sunday, made their cries ring out in the streets of the country on the occasion of International Women's Rights Day. Monday March 9, on the initiative of the Las Brujas del Mar collective ("the witches of the sea"), "Mexican women are advised not to go to work, go out on the streets, do their shopping or go to their lessons", details the Mexican daily newspaper on the left La Jornada.
A strike "Historic" for the Spanish newspaper El Pais, whose editorial staff publicly supported the movement, insisting that "Unlike millions of women in the country (his) journalists can make their grievances visible". The editors, publishers, photographers, videographers but also the administrative teams of the Mexican branch explain that they are joining the mobilization and therefore will not go to work.
Ten Mexicans killed every day
It was after a series of particularly brutal murders and faced with the apathy of the authorities that the feminist collectives decided to set up this project. "We are the cry of those who are no longer there", explains the Mexicanas en el Extranjero group ("Mexicans Abroad"), associated with the initiative and which brings together the Mexican diaspora in more than fifty countries.
Somos el grito de las que ya no están. Sígannos para recibir información sobre todos los eventos que ocurrirán alr… https://t.co/XqxGdhcHjD
Maria Salguero went through the data from the local authorities as well as the press. According to his count, 3,825 Mexican women were killed in 2019. On average, ten women are killed every day in the country, emphasized the Mexican daily El universal, deemed close to the Institutional Revolutionary Party.
If the stories of the victims regularly blacken the pages of the newspapers and swarm on social networks, two crimes that occurred in February were those of too many: that of Ingrid Escamilla and that of Fatima. The first, 25, was murdered by her husband, who stabbed her several times, butchered and dismembered. In horror, photos of his mutilated body were published in the press.
Durante 2019 asesinaron a 3825 mujeres. Es un incremento del 6% con respecto a 2018. In México you have to settle between 10… https://t.co/b4oIFGj3S4
The second, only 7 years old, was abducted by a couple when she was out of school. His body, found four days later hidden in a plastic bag, showed traces of torture. Relatives believed that nothing had been done to protect the child: the authorities having lost precious time after the abduction of the girl by refusing to listen to her mother.
"Our requests remain unanswered"
But the demands of the Mexicans are not limited to the drastic reduction in the number of murders of women. They are also fighting for more justice in a country where impunity has reached very high levels in court cases. "Justice! Justice! Justice! ", abstract La Jornada.
President Andrés Manuel Lopez Obrador, known as "AMLO", publicly denounced machismo, shortly before the day March 8:
“Violence against girls and women is incompatible with our ideals. We don't want it and we won't allow it. In the government of the fourth transformation, we are busy every day dealing with the causes and effects of violence. "
However, the liberal Mexican daily recalls Reforma, the head of state is the subject of harsh criticism among the ranks of feminists: "More than a year after the arrival of the new government, our requests remain unanswered", they insist. In mid-February, AMLO preferred to denounce the disorder and graffiti that followed the assassination of Ingrid Escamilla rather than the crime of which it was the victim.
The call for a day without women has been taken up by large companies, but also public administrations, schools and universities, all of which have announced that they "Would not deduct a day of wages" to the strikers. Because March 9 is also a way of showing the weight of women in Mexican society: "We produce 31 billion pesos a day, we are one of the largest economic forces in the country (…) and we are 51% of the population", insists Vanessa Bauche.
