Millions of Mexican women join ‘historical’ femicide strike

Since 2016, Maria Salguero – a 40-year-old geographer and Mexico City resident – has made it her daily mission to document gender-based killings across Mexico, where an average of 10 women are murdered each day.

Updating her online map of femicides was the only activity Salguero could not refrain from on Monday. She was one of an estimated millions of women participated in the “Un Dia Sin Nosotras” (A Day Without Us) nationwide strike to demonstrate the contribution of women to society.

As a result, women and girls were visibly absent from public life in Mexico City, with mostly men seen walking to and from work and taking public transport. The city’s road information centre said there was little traffic on many of the capital’s major thoroughfares.

“Imagine if one day you arrived at your office and your female co-worker didn’t show up because she was a victim of femicide,” Salguero told dpa. “Imagine your teacher, your boss or your sister didn’t show up – [the absence of women] is making this visible.”

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More than 3,800 women were murdered in Mexico last year, which includes about 1,000 cases that were classified as gender-based killings or femicide. That was a 10 per cent rise compared to 2018, according to official statistics.

Over the past five years, the number of girls killed increased by 96 per cent, with 98 cases reported in 2019, according to the think tank Mexico Evalua.

Recent incidents of gender-based killings – notably the murder in February of 25-year-old Ingrid Escamilla, who was stabbed, partially skinned and disembowelled by her boyfriend – fuelled more anger among women and calls for the mass walkout.

“If women are worth nothing in Mexico, then Mexico will be left without what we produce and consume,” the groups that organized the strike said in a statement.

The Milenio newspaper estimated that some 36.4 million women and girls could be absent from public life. According to a survey conducted by the Reforma newspaper, 41 per cent of women surveyed said they would participate.

Among institutions supporting the strike were the nation’s Supreme Court – whose President Arturo Zaldivar said any female member of the judiciary should feel free to stay home – both houses of parliament, the Mexican Stock Exchange and the country’s major unions.

In a sign of support, Irene Espinosa, the deputy governor of Mexico’s central bank, addressed the femicide rate last month while presenting a quarterly inflation report.

“The figures on violence against women are among the highest worldwide – they are unacceptable and have been normalized,” she said.

Even the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Mexico, which usually remains apolitical, said that the Church of Santos Cosme and Damian in Mexico City was participating in the strike by covering statues of female saints in purple cloth.

Purple is the liturgical colour of Lent, but also one that has become associated with the women’s movement.

Major Mexican corporations such as Grupo Bimbo, Walmart Mexico and Coca-Cola encouraged their female employees to stay home.

Ytzel Maya, a member of the feminist group “Colectiva Dignas Hijas” (Proud Daughters Collective), said the strike had brought disparate strands of the Mexican women’s movement together, referring to it as a “historical moment.”

“It looks like they are starting to pay attention to us, but the truth is that we are not being heard,” Maya told dpa.

The government’s response to the movement has been lacklustre. Leftist President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador has come under fire for his supposed indifference to the plight of women and his failure to tackle impunity for male perpetrators.

The president – commonly referred to as AMLO – dismissed the strike as an effort by conservatives to undermine his government, and compared it to protests prior to the 1973 coup against Chile’s socialist president Salvador Allende.

Despite hope that AMLO, who ran on a progressive, left-wing platform, would present a plan to tackle the femicide rate after coming to power in 2018, progress has been slow.

“The aggressors go free, conveying the message that they can continue killing because they will not be sanctioned,” says Salguero. “[Lopez Obrador] is turning his back on the victims… There is no concrete plan of action, no results, and impunity continues to grow.”

But for Arussi Unda, a founding member of feminist collective “Brujas del Mar” (Witches of the Sea) that helped to inspire the mass walkout, the strike has already achieved its aims.

“Everyone is talking about femicides and violence against women,” she told dpa. “What we wanted to achieve has already been achieved.” (dpa)