Photo @ J. Marquardt (SIPAZ)
In observation of the day against feminicide and violence against women, some 1200 persons in San Cristóbal de Las Casas and more than a hundred in Tuxtla Gutiérrez mobilized in a simultaneous protest on 14 May with banners denouncing feminicide and violence against women in Chiapas. They declared the two cities to be “insecure and violent.”
The march in San Cristóbal left from the Department of Social Studies of the Autonomous University of Chiapas, directing itself toward the Sonora Fraccionamiento, where on 14 April was murdered Itzel Janet Méndez Pérez, of 17 years of age. From there it came to the Cathedral Plaza, where it demanded that authorities ensure security protocols and professional investigations that not be tainted by gender prejudice.
Roberto Méndez and Lucía Pérez, the parents of Itzel, lamented that there are not conditions of security and protection for the citizens of San Cristóbal, where violence against women has steadily increased. “We cannot do nothing; we cannot even walk safely through the streets […]. We request that the state and federal governments do something,” said Lucía Pérez, Itzel’s mother. Roberto Méndez, her father, demanded justice “for all raped and murdered women. I want justice not just for Itzel but also but all other women who they have been murdering in this country and in Chiapas. I demand justice because to lose a daughter is a pain that cannot be imagined. I demand justice because our beautiful city of San Cristóbal is full of evil.”
Martha Figueroa Mier, from the Mercedes Olivera Feminist Collective, assured that in accordance with press reports, from January to April there have been 20 feminicides in Chiapas, and no justice has been made in the any of the cases. “In 2011, the State Attorney General’s Office reported more than 100 murders of women in Chiapas. We have requested that the Office establish protection protocols for women. We have requested that it create a scientific police to investigate the murders, because in the investigations they establish that the women are murdered for going out at night, or for dressing provocatively. With this, no one is found responsible for the violence against us,” she expressed. She added that on average there are 5 women murdered each month. The activist recalled that tourist women have also been raped by taxi drivers, and that municipal police have also attacked European tourists.
Regarding the number of cases of feminicides in Chiapas, the varies according to the source. According to to the data of the Chamber of Commerce and associations of the tourist sector of San Cristóbal de Las Casas “there were two murders of women in 2011.” So in what has passed of 2012 the case of the youth Itzel Méndez Pérez is the first such case, according to Cuarto Poder.
For more information (in Spanish):
Marcha en memoria de Itzel Méndez Pérez y contra el feminicidio(Audios Radio Zapatista, 15 de mayo 2012)
Declaran a Tuxtla Gutiérrez y San Cristóbal de las Casas “ciudades inseguras y violentas” (Proceso, 14 de mayo 2012)
Familiares de víctimas protestan en Chiapas por el aumento de feminicidios (CNN México, 14 de mayo 2012)
DENUNCIA FEMINICIDIOS EN CHIAPAS: AUDIOS CONFERENCIA DE PRENSA Y MARCHA 14 DE MAYO (Koman Ilel, 8 de mayo 2012)
Comerciantes demandan esclarecer asesinato (Cuarto Poder, 15 de mayo 2012)
For more information from SIPAZ (in English):
Chiapas: Justice is demanded in the case of the feminicide of the youth Itzel Yanet Méndez Pérez (16 May 2012)
Demand for end to feminicide in Oaxaca (8 September 2011)
Guerrero – briefs – Tierra Caliente is second-highest national location in number of feminicides (14 September 2010)
sipazen.wordpress.com 