Women protest against gender violence in São Paulo
With banners and slogans, the women tried to sensitise passers-by on the high femicide rates in Brazil and South America.)
Ni Una Menos. The rallying cry of the Argentinian women echoed in Brazil on Sunday (23 Oct), as women met at the free span of the São Paulo Museum of Art (MASP) for a nearly five-kilometre march. With banners and slogans, they tried to sensitise passers-by on the high femicide rates in Brazil and South America.
The demonstration was in solidarity with the movement in Argentina that followed the murder of 16-year-old Lucia Perez in Mar del Plata. On 8 October, she was raped, tortured, and murdered. The criminals washed the victim's body, dressed it, and left her body in front of a hospital, trying to make it look like she had had an overdose. The crime sparked outrage in Argentina, and last Wednesday (19), thousands of women held a one-hour stoppage against femicide, gender violence, and discrimination of women at work.
The case happened in Argentina, but 14-year-old student Manuela Pires says this type of violence is also common in Brazil. “I think the danger and all we've seen in Argentina are also there at our streets, just outside home,” said the young lady, who was at the protest with friends from her school's women's collective.
“Here is a generation of women who are struggling hard to change this so we can hold our heads up and not feel intimidated, in a sisterhood with women where everyone has a voice,” she said.
Violence ranking
In combating murder of women, Maria das Neves, coordinator of the youth wing of the Brazilian Women's Union, says that the law that turned femicide into a serious felony should become more widely known, and police stations for women should operate 24/7. The activist said that Brazil is one of the countries with the highest murder rates specifically targetting women.
“[Femicide] is not a crime of passion, and it's more than murder. It's a killing where women are victimised because they are women,” Maria das Neves said.
According to a survey carried out by the Latin American Faculty of Social Science (FLACSO) commissioned by the United Nations, Brazil ranks 5th globally among 83 countries with the highest rate of women murders, behind El Salvador, Colombia, Guatemala, and Russia.
The report, based on 2013 data from the Ministry of Health, points out that domestic and familiy violence is the primary form of lethal violence against women in Brazil. In four out of every seven women murder cases, the perpetrator had a close relationship with the victim.
Translated by Mayra Borges
Fonte: Women protest against gender violence in São Paulo
