Thousands of women marched this Tuesday in Mexico asking for justice for the victims of femicidesafety for their daughters, mothers and sisters, in a country where 10 women die every day due to their gender.
A large contingent of women of all ages, some with children and even babies strapped to their chests, walked along the main avenue of Mexico City towards National Palaceseat of political power and where the president resides Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador with his family, in the historic center of the capital.
Accompanied by music, dressed in purple, white and green, the women marched carrying long blankets with photos and names of missing or murdered women, in the middle of a sea of banners with slogans alluding to the defense of rights and requests for security.
“They are killing us, they are imprisoning us, they are disappearing us, we are not all one,” she said on a blanket carried by several protesters.
“I march today to exist tomorrow,” read a banner. “I march with my daughter so as not to march for her,” was written in another in the mobilization to commemorate the International Women’s Day.
Photo EE: Rosario Servin
For several days, the National Palace, in front of the imposing capital’s zócalo, was protected in its entire periphery by metal fences about three meters high, which were also placed around monuments and important or emblematic buildings of the city such as the Cathedral.
Monday night a “FEMINICIDAL MEXICO” It was written in large white letters on the sheets of the fence that protects the National Palace and from where on Tuesday police launched a type of gas through some cracks at women dressed in black who beat her, some armed with mallets and hammers, from the other side .
Witnesses said that what the security elements were throwing was tear gas and fire extinguisher gas, but the capital’s government secretary, Martí Bates, told local television that it was only gas from fire extinguishers.
Security authorities in the capital said that they accounted for some 75,000 women in the march and that they had seized homemade bombs, sticks and hammers.
“Although I feel privileged because I live in a safe area, no one guarantees that one day I can disappear (…) and appear in a vacant lot dead, raped,” Frida Moreno, a 21-year-old student, said earlier on the verge of tears. .
“I understand that there are people who have enough reasons to scratch, burn and break things,” added the young woman who confessed that she was marked by traumatic experiences with abusive teachers in her adolescence. “I feel compelled to go march so the girls don’t have to go through the same thing.”
Along the route of the march, other groups of women painted slogans on the metal protections that surrounded monuments.
“Feminicidal State!” and “Justice! Justice!” Repeated the women who left the emblematic Angel of Independence, a monument erected on the Paseo de la Reforma, bound for the Zócalo, the country’s main square.
“There is a lot of impotence because you can’t do anything for your sisters” who are attacked, Diana Renedo, 19, a business relations student, told AFP while a contingent shouted in unison “Not one more murdered!”
Mothers of victims of femicide were hoarse doing a roll call of the names of their daughters. “I want to see the murderers in jail,” read a banner from that contingent.
Some protesters who dressed in black, had their faces covered with scarves and threw balls of pink and purple paint at monuments located on the avenue.
Others uprooted road signposts and carried them on their shoulders as they walked to the Zócalo, AFP testified.
Along the way, shops, monuments and public places were covered with metal fences of more than two meters to prevent possible graffiti and damage.
Photo EE: Rosario Servin
Some 3,000 policewomen, known as the “athenas,” guarded the march in the capital with riot shields.
Mexico, with 126 million inhabitants, recorded 1,006 femicides last yearan increase compared to 978 in 2020, according to official figures.
Crimes against women represent 14.8% of the total. Of these, 80% corresponds to family violence, followed by sexual abuse, with 8.4%, according to data from the national statistics institute, INEGI, from 2021.
The salary gap in Mexico It is 13%, that is, for every 100 pesos that a man receives on average for his monthly work, a woman receives 87, according to data from the IMCO think tank.