Brazil and Costa Rica Soccer Teams Show Solidarity with Women

Brazil's soccer team El Cruzeiro is wearing T-shirts at Wednesday's match highlighting the numerous issues that women in the country still face on a daily basis in honor of International Women's Day.

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“Every 11 minutes, a woman is being raped,” reads number 11, while number 3 states, “Women work three more times than men at home,” number 5 explains that Brazil ranks fifth in femicides in the world, while number 2 says, “one woman dies every two hours.” The goal keeper's T-shirt says that women only represent 12 percent of the country's mayors.

The Belo Horizonte-based club collaborated with the state agency of human rights Azminas on the official statistics to raise awareness about the plight of women.

“El Cruzeiro has participated in various campaigns against all kinds of prejudices,” said the club's President Gilvan de Pinho Tavares in a statement. “In the 21st century, seeing women victims of violence and discrimination is unacceptable.”

A similar initiative has been announced by the Costa Rican soccer league, as soccer players will not celebrate the goals scored on March 8, as part of a campaign meant to express solidarity with women victims of violence.

The campaign #AunNoHayNadaQueCelebrar, or “There's still nothing to celebrate” in English, launched by the National Institute of Security, equipped the players with black T-shirts showing the national statistics on gender violence and gender inequality at the beginning of each match.