Violence Against Women | Several events organized around the world

(Mexico) Thousands of demonstrators took to the streets of Europe and Latin America on Thursday to demand an end to violence against women, with the police dispersing some gatherings, especially in Istanbul and Mexico.

From Madrid to Barcelona, ​​Paris to London, Guatemala to Honduras, the parades marked the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women.

In Mexico City, thousands of women took to the streets. “They are not dead, they killed them”, said the placards held up by the demonstrators of this country where every day 10 women are killed, according to the UNO.

Clashes pitted small groups of demonstrators, armed with hammers, against the police, who used irritating gases and fire extinguishers to repel them. Ten policewomen, three demonstrators and an official were slightly injured in the incidents, according to a report by the security services of the capital.

In Chile, the demonstration which brought together thousands of women in Santiago took on political accents, against the far-right candidate José Antonio Kast, nostalgic for the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet, in the lead at the end of the first round of the presidential election.

In the crowd, a 23-year-old student, Maria Jesus, said she feared that if he won, he would “violate all of our rights and what we have achieved”.

In Guatemala, hundreds of women have also taken to the streets in this country hit by an increase in feminicides (by 30% compared to the same period of 2020 according to the authorities) and teenage pregnancies.

Demonstrations were also organized in Venezuela, Bolivia and Uruguay. In Latin America and the Caribbean, some 4,091 women were victims of femicide in 2020, according to the United Nations regional commission.

“We are not all here, the ones who were murdered are missing,” sang the demonstrators gathered in Madrid, wearing purple masks, hats and scarves.

“Do not be silent in the face of male violence,” echoed the banners displayed by hundreds of demonstrators in Istanbul.

They also denounced Turkey’s withdrawal from an international treaty protecting women, the Istanbul Convention, accused by conservatives in power of encouraging homosexuality and threatening the traditional family structure.

They were greeted by tear gas fire as they tried to cross the police barricades.

“A global scourge”

Spain, which has a powerful feminist movement, has a public observatory on gender violence which has recorded 1,118 murders of women by their companion or ex-companion since 2003, including 37 in 2021.

In Turkey, 345 women have been killed since the start of 2021, according to the We Will Stop Feminicide platform, against 410 in 2020.

“At the global level, it is a scourge … It is time for patriarchal violence to stop against our bodies, our lives and our decisions”, testified to AFP in the Madrid procession Leslie Holguin, a thirty-year-old actress.

“We demand an end to prostitution and demand an end to killings, ill-treatment and rape,” added Maria Moran, a 50-year-old civil servant.

The fight against gender-based violence is a national priority in Spain, which in 2004 adopted the first law in Europe making the victim’s gender an aggravating circumstance in the event of aggression.

“We will only be a just society when we are done with all types of violence against women,” Socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez, whose government has more women than men, insisted on Twitter.

One in three women

Nearly one in three women worldwide has experienced physical or sexual violence, often from someone they know, according to the UN.

“Violence against women is a global crisis. In all our own neighborhoods, women and girls live in danger, ”said Sima Bahous, Executive Director of UN Women, the United Nations Organization defending women’s rights.

Pope Francis also spoke on Twitter: “The different forms of abuse that many women suffer represent degradation for men and for all of humanity. We cannot look away ”.

In Africa, several African heads of state gathered Thursday in Kinshasa for a summit on “positive masculinity” solemnly pledged to fight against discrimination and violence against women, from rape during conflicts to genital mutilation.

We “launch the African Union campaign to end violence against women and girls and implement a policy of zero tolerance in conflict and post-conflict situations”, said the heads of state, including DRC President Félix Tshisekedi and Rwandan Paul Kagame, in a joint statement.