March in Oaxaca. Photo @SIPAZ
In observance of the International Day of Non-Violence toward Women on 25 November, different collectives and organizations carried out acts of denunciation in the capital of Oaxaca. A caravan-march carrying dozens of paper coffins representing the 240 femicides that have taken place during the administration of Gabino Cué took to the streets of the city to Santa María Ixcotel, where participants demanded the punishment of the murderers and clarification of the cases. The organization Consorcio for Parliamentary Dialogue and Gender Equity denounced the inefficacy of the Oaxacan justice system which via omission has allowed for an increase in disappearances and murders against women, stressing that 99% of the cases find themselves unresolved, with the perpetrators unpunished. In this sense, Consorcio accuses judges of partiality and demands that sentences incorporate gender perspectives. Beyond this, members of the National Network of Young Pro-Choice Catholics carried out a march through downtown Oaxaca City which ended at the Palace of Governance, where flowers and crosses were left behind to represent the murdered women, and protestors demanded that the government put an end to the impunity amidst the increase in femicides and sexual violence.
This same day, non-governmental organizations in Chiapas demanded that the state government declare a Gender Violence Alert. These groups denounced “the incessant violence against women in Chiapas and the different forms of violence against women and their extreme conclusion: femicide.” They recalled that, so far this year (January-October 2013), the number of deaths of women has reached 84, 71 of whom were killed violently. On 24 November, the Indigenous Center for Comprehensive Development and Training (CIDECI) received more than 200 persons who participated in a “Meeting against violence against women and femicide in Chiapas.” Participants engaged in dialogue regarding three fundamental problems: structural violence, femicide, and women’s health. The next day, there was a march of women through the streets of San Cristóbal de Las Casas which raised the slogans “No more violence against women” and “Patriarchy kills.” In parallel terms, a juridical commission submitted a petition for a Gender Violence Alert to the Secretary of State Governance, based in Tuxtla Gutiérrez. Also in observance of the International Day against Violence against Women, Mayan peoples and theists from the northern region of the state released a press-release denouncing these types of forms of violence. The document, among other things, mentions that “domestic violence is ever-worsening in our communities, as worsened by the consumption and sale of alcohol. The trade in alcohol principally affects WOMEN and CHILDREN.”
Also on 25 November, in Guerrero, President Enrique Peña Nieto announced the construction of a Center of Justice to provide legal, psychological, and economic support for women who are victims of violence in the state. The center was inaugurated in Tlapa, in the Mountain region, and it represents the first phase of a communal project called Women’s City, which seeks to build offices to provide comprehensive attention to women who suffer violence or have been abandoned or trafficked.
For more information (in Spanish):
En Oaxaca, suman 64 mujeres asesinadas en 2013 (Grupo Fórmula, 24 de noviembre de 2013)
Son 240 casos de feminicidios en Oaxaca, marchan en la capital(Realidad Oaxaca, 25 de noviembre de 2013)
Celebran “viacrucis” por las mujeres (El Imparcial, 25 de noviembre de 2013)
Video: Colectivo exige cese a la violencia contra las mujeres (Noticias Voz e Imagen de Oaxaca, 25 de noviembre de 2013)
Realizan encuentro contra feminicidio en Chiapas (Contra Feminicidio Ch, 26 de noviembre de 2013)
Exigen se decrete en Chiapas alerta por violencia de género (Chiapas Paralelo, 26 de noviembre de 2013)
Pueblos mayas y creyentes en el día internacional de la no violencia contra las mujeres (Pueblos Mayas y Creyentes Unidos Por El Cuidado De La Vida Y Defensa De Nuestro Territorio, 25 de noviembre de 2013)
Segob “despolitiza” Alerta de Género… 3 años después; es insuficiente para defender a las mujeres, dicen ONGs (Sin Embargo, 26 de noviembre de 2013)
“Ya basta” de violencia a las mujeres: Peña (El Universal, 26 de noviembre de 2013)
Mujeres víctimas de violencia tendrán un Centro de Justicia en Guerrero (CNN México, 26 de noviembre de 2013)
For more information from SIPAZ (in English):
Chiapas/Oaxaca: Conmemoration of femicides during Day of the Dead (13 November 2013)
Chiapas: Careful, patriarchy kills! Presentation of the “Campaign against violence against women and femicide in Chiapas” (3 October 2013)
Chiapas: Women declare alert over gender violence (20 July 2013)
Chiapas: Increase in feminicide and State Accord for Gender Equality (22 April 2013)
Oaxaca: March of releatives of victims of feminicide and members of human rights organizations for women (22 April 2013)
Oaxaca: More feminicides under Gabino Cué than in the final years of Ulises Ruiz (24 January 2013)
Chiapas: Colem Group of Women take action against feminicide (19 October 2012)
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