(Buenos Aires) Thousands of women took to the streets of Buenos Aires on Saturday to denounce sexist violence during the 8e annual march under the slogan “Ni Una Menos” (“not one less”), marked by the recent murder of a young woman.
“We are the cry of those who no longer have a voice”, can we read on one of the hundreds of banners of the demonstrators gathered in front of the Argentinian Parliament, in a country where 252 feminicides were committed in 2022, according to the latest official figures.
This year, the march also focused on the economic inequalities suffered by women, considering them a form of violence and a straitjacket preventing them from getting out of violent situations.
“I spent 47 years with a husband who was violent and abusive towards me, it was other women who helped me to leave and I managed to get him out of the house. I am 70 years old and I have been living happily for a year,” Raquel Miranda, a retiree who considers herself a “survivor,” told AFP.
Mme Miranda hands out pamphlets to younger children with contact information for “feminist support groups, because you have to ask for help to get by,” she says.
Further down the street, pictures hang from a makeshift stand, with the first and last names of men who have been named by their ex-partners as having an “alimony debt” for not paying child support. children.
“These are also forms of violence, of subjugation after the separation”, explains Lisa Repetto, 36, mother of two girls aged 8 and 11 whom she says she is raising alone.
seven balls
This year’s march is marked by the death of Rocio Gonzalez, 25, who was shot seven times on Thursday by a co-worker of the same age, police said.
The young woman had filed two complaints of harassment against the aggressor, the last in May, and the court had taken a precautionary measure which resulted in a change in the working hours of the person concerned to avoid any contact with his professional victim.
“We are fed up with this legal system, you file a complaint and no one takes care of you, after his death they said ‘it was serious’…. “, quips Mariana Cobas, a 22-year-old young woman outraged by the Rocio affair.
In 88% of cases recorded in 2022, the victim knew their killer and in 59% of cases it was their partner or ex-partner, according to statistics from the Supreme Court’s Femicide Observatory.
“The numbers are not going down,” warned the NGO La Casa del Encuentro, one of the organizations that called for a march on Saturday to make crimes such as Rocio’s visible and demand urgent action from the authorities. ‘State.
“The measures taken so far have not been sufficient and although we are seeing changes in their treatment, the socio-cultural transformation necessary to bring down the patriarchy is unfolding very slowly, leaving hundreds of transvestite/trans women and companions killed each year for gender-related reasons,” the statement read.
The ‘Ni Una Menos’ movement held its first march in 2015 when hundreds of thousands took to the streets after the murder of 14-year-old Chiara Paez, who was beaten to death by her 17-year-old boyfriend after refusing to leave. abort their child.
This case kick-started a feminist movement that grew under the impact of hundreds of new crimes in Argentina.
From the first march on June 3, 2015 until May 28 of this year, 2,282 feminicides were committed in the country, according to a report by La Casa del Encuentro.