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Paraguayan women and political and social movements protested Monday in front of the Ministry of Women, denouncing the six femicides registered already in 2017 — an average of one murder every four days.
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Six women dressed in black, with their faces covered with white cloth, lied in front of the facility in the capital of Asuncion, surrounded by police, in order to represent the “crime scene” of the year's first femicide cases.
The activists outlined their bodies with chalk on the ground, along with the names of the victims: Isidora Rios, Severiana Acosta, Maria Adela Fernandez, Mercedes Veron, Baleriana Gomez and Lorenza Sanchez.
Women also demanded the state properly address gender violence with the construction of more shelters for victims and the implementation of a law providing integral protection, passed in December.
“We believe that the Paraguayan state is responsible for these femicides, for negligence and apathy,” said activist Belen Cantero to EFE, adding that the issue affected a very broad range of women — from 27 to 65 years old and from various parts of the country in these six first cases.
The frequency of femicides amounted to a “state of emergency,” she added, that could not wait for the calculations of the state's general budget.
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