Women's Day Protest in Mexico City turns violent

[Stevicus]

A Women’s March in Mexico City Turns Violent, With at Least 81 Injured

MEXICO CITY — Hundreds of women marched on Mexico’s seat of government Monday, some carrying their children, others blowtorches, bats and hammers, prepared for a confrontation they hoped would force the country to tackle rampant violence against women.

The International Women’s Day protest was fueled by anger at President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, who has backed a politician accused by several women of rape in a country that suffers some of the world’s worst rates of gender violence. Despite a rift within the governing party over the issue, Mr. López Obrador has supported the politician ahead of June elections.

As the protesters gathered around the national palace — Mr. Lopez Obrador’s residence and the seat of government — their ire was focused on a metal fence that had been erected to protect the building from being overrun. Women wearing black balaclavas pulled down parts of the barricade as the police fired volleys of flash-bang grenades into the crowd, causing several small stampedes.

At least 62 police and 19 civilians were injured by late Monday evening, according to Mexico City’s security branch.

While Mr. López Obrador has portrayed his presidency as part of a populist movement to lift up the marginalized in Mexico, women activists say the president has in fact been ignoring the needs of half the population. The president insisted on Monday that his government is committed to equality, but critics argue that little has been done about violence against women during his time in power.

The article mentioned that Mexico suffers from some of the world's worst rates of gender violence.

In the roughly two years since Mr. López Obrador took office, the rates of violence against women have not changed significantly. Last year, an average of 10 women were killed in Mexico every day, and there were some 16,000 cases of rape. An investigation by one news site, Animal Politico, found that from 2014 to 2018, only about 5 percent of all sexual assault allegations, including rape, resulted in a criminal sentence.

It is that impunity that has enraged Mexico’s feminists, leading some groups to embrace violence as a tactic to force the nation to pay attention to their demands.

“We fight today so we don’t die tomorrow,” women chanted Monday as they marched across the city to the national palace. Others declared, “The fault is not mine, not because of where I was or what I was wearing.”

Over the weekend, activists spray-painted the barricade around the palace with the names of women killed by their husbands, boyfriends or supposed admirers.

Ivette Granados, 49, and her daughter Maria Puente, 16, attended Monday’s protest together. They said they were angered by their daily struggle against the sexual abuse many say is every woman’s common experience in Mexico. Mother and daughter took turns listing off the assaults they said they had suffered over the years: being grabbed in the street, on the metro or at a party, and men flashing their genitals at them in public.

While Ms. Granados did not agree with using violence as a tactic to further the feminist movement, she lamented that it seemed to be the only thing that made the nation take notice of their yearslong struggle for equality.

Women's Day: Protesters clash with police in Mexico

Police and activists have clashed in Mexico City at a march to mark International Women's Day.

Officers forced back protesters with tear gas and riot shields in the capital's main square, the Zocalo.

Protesters were calling for the government to address the country's poor record on the murder of women, often referred to as femicide, and gender-based violence.

Government figures suggest at least 939 women were victims of femicide in 2020.

Thousands of women, some with their daughters, attended the march in the Mexican capital on Monday.

One girl was seen carrying a sign reading "They haven't killed me, but I live in fear".

At one point, some members of the crowd managed to pull down some of the large metal fencing around the National Plaza using hammers and wooden poles.

 

[metis]

Brazil is even worse.