Argentina: Thousands Take to Streets to Reject Gender Violence

Argentina's social and political organizations demonstrated Monday in Buenos Aires, Cordoba, Mar del Plata, Tucuman, and other cities to mark the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women.

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In Buenos Aires, women began their march at the Bolivian Embassy, ​​where they recalled the struggle that Latin American peoples are carrying out against all forms of violence generated by misogyny, racism and state repression.

"An Argentinian woman dies every 32 hours," the Women of the Latin American Matrix spokesperson Analia Kely said, adding that they "keep a record of femicides nationwide and the numbers of complaints do not decrease...Macri's administration leaves without having done much."

While the Socialist Workers Party (PTS) leader Soledad Baja denounced that there is "a miserable budget for the attention of victims of violence."

She also recalled that progressive organizations repudiate that the Argentinian authorities have vetoed the protocol of care for non-punishable abortions.

From Jan. 1 to Oct. 31, 229 women were victims of femicide in Argentina, according to a report presented by the Ombudsman's office.

On this occasion, the report also considered cases of women who committed suicide after being sexually abused and confirmed that 122 minors were orphaned because of violence against women.

The Declaration on the Elimination of Violence Against Women, issued by the U.N. General Assembly (UNGA) in 1993, defines violence against women as “any act of gender-based violence that results in, or is likely to result in, physical, sexual or psychological harm or suffering to women, including threats of such acts, coercion or arbitrary deprivation of liberty, whether occurring in public or in private life.”

The UNGA designated Nov. 25 as the date to remember its declaration after taking into account an emblematic Latin American case of violence against women. ​​​​​The date as chosen to honor of the Dominican Republic's Mirabal sisters who were killed by Rafael Trujillo's dictatorship in 1960.

In May 1960, Minerva and Maria Teresa were sentenced to prison for being part of the June 14 Movement (14J), a leftist clandestine organization opposed to the U.S.-backed dictatorship.

A couple of months later, however, Trujillo released them to "show his generosity" but on Nov. 25, while traveling in a car, the three sisters were captured by the Dominican secret police; "the butterflies", as they were known, were then murdered by the military.

Their bodies, which had clear proof of lynching, appeared later on the scene of "a car accident."