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News > Latin America

Marchers Protest to Eliminate Violence Against Women

  • Members of feminist organizations rally against gender violence on the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women, in Valparaiso, Chile, November 24, 2017.

    Members of feminist organizations rally against gender violence on the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women, in Valparaiso, Chile, November 24, 2017. | Photo: Reuters

Published 25 November 2017
Opinion

Nov. 25 is the U.N. International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women.

Today marks the 18th anniversary of the United Nations International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women. The U.N. and grassroots organizations around the world are using social media campaigns and marches to call attention to violence perpetrated on women.

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This year, the U.N. is marking Nov. 25 with a 16-day campaign “Leave No One Behind – End Violence Against Women” to eliminate gender aggression toward women. The campaign will run until Dec. 10.

Thousands are marching at the Not One More protest in Lima, Peru. Women in Peru have reported over 6,000 cases of sexual aggression this year alone and 94 femicides. In Uruguay, rights group Women’s Strike began its anti-violence event with a U.N. conference in Montevideo. They will hold an anti-violence protests Saturday as well as a conference on forced child marriage in Latin America and the Caribbean on Monday. 

Organizations in Quito, Ecuador are hosting an anti-violence against women march that will traverse the city’s historic center starting at 4:00 p.m. local time. In Ecuador, a woman is killed because of her genderevery 53 hours on average. Between January and July of 2016, Ecuador had eight femicide cases. In 2017, there were 15 cases between those same months. 

Hundreds are expected to show up to protest violence against women in the Dominican capital of Santo Domingo. Roughly 80 femicides were registered this year on the small island nation. Over 55,000 women have made formal complaints to authorities against family, gender and sexual violence they have experienced.

In Santiago, Chile, around 5,000 people marched through the city Friday to eliminate violence against women. 

Approximately 20 organizations in Chiapas, Mexico are demanding that the government provide investigations into femicides across the state, not just in a few municipalities. 

Ines Gomez from the Center for Women’s Rights of Chiapas told EFE that marital violence is a big issue within the state. Gloria Guadalupe Flores added that Chiapas has a “high indices of femicides” and that the government needs to provide services for women and end impunity for men.

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U.N. authorities in Nicaragua said that cases of violence against women need to be investigated and that perpetrator impunity needs to end. Ten femicide cases from 2017 are still unsolved and unconvicted in Nicaragua, where 43 women were femicide victims this year.

The U.N. Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean found that in 2016, the Dominican Republic suffered 188 femicides, Honduras, 466, El Salvador, 371, Argentina, 254 and Guatemala, 211.

The U.N.named Nov. 25 the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women in 1999 after three sisters, Patria, Minerva and Maria Teresa Mirabal were killed on this date in the Dominican Republic for their political activism against the dictator Rafael Leonidas Trujillo.

The social media English-language hashtags, #MeToo, #NoMoreVictims, and in Spanish, #MiPrimerAcoso (MyFirstHarrassment) #NiUnaMenos (NotOneLess) #YaNoMas (NoMore) and #VivasNosQueremos (WeWanttoLive) have all helped to expose the magnitude of normalized violence women encounter from strangers, acquaintances and partners.

Today’s marchers hope to bring further awareness and consequences for those who enact violence toward women.  

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