Participants 300,000 | Date 3 June 2015 | |
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Cause Protest against femicides in Argentina Location Congressional Plaza, Buenos Aires, Argentina | ||
#NiUnaMenos (Spanish: Not one less) were walk-out demonstrations that took place in Argentina on June 3, 2015, June 3, 2016 and October 19, 2016 They were protests against femicides and gender violence in the country.
Contents
The demonstration was recognized on Twitter under the hashtag "#NiUnaMenos".
Context
While there are no official national statistics on femicide in Argentina, the women’s organization La Casa Del Encuentro reports that roughly 1,800 women were murdered as a result of their gender between 2008 and 2014. This is calculated to be about once every thirty one hours. While femicide crimes have historically been known to occur inside of the home, they have extended into public spaces as well.
Though legislation has been passed since 2009 in an attempt to combat femicide and gender violence, the current law against gender violence in Argentina is not implemented. The law has 45 articles, of which eleven are partially implemented, and only eight are fully implemented. There is no federal budget to combat femicide, no criminal registry for those who have committed gender violence, and law enforcement has no special training in this area.
June 2015 protest
On May 11, 2015, the body of Chiara Paez was found under the porch of her boyfriend’s home in Rufino, Argentina. The 14-year-old was discovered to be eight weeks pregnant at the time of her death. Investigators found traces of abortion inducing drugs in her system, supporting the belief that her murder was the result of disagreement about her pregnancy. Her 16-year-old boyfriend, who confessed to the crime, was charged with forced abortion, aggravated murder, and femicide.
The initial march mourning her death was held on May 12, 2015 in Rufino, Argentina, where over 7,000 people protested the circumstances of her death. Nearly a month later, roughly 300,000 people met in Buenos Aires at the Congressional Plaza, on June 3, 2015 in response to her murder and the many other gender-based crimes that occur regularly throughout Argentina. The protest was backed by women's rights groups, unions, political organizations and the Catholic Church. The demonstration was set to start at 17:00, but the plaza was already filled at 15:00, and still had people in it at 20:30.
The actor Juan Minujín was the only male to address the people during the event. Other people that did so were Maitena, Érica Rivas and the relatives of women that died in controversial cases.
Goals and results
The #NiUnaMenos protests sought to present women as active participants in the fight against gender violence and femicide, not just as victims. They sought to bring the stories of these girls, and women like them, to the attention of not only their government, but to the rest of the world. They sought to bring machismo, or toxic, hypermasculine culture that is attributed to these and many other crimes, to worldwide attention as well. In addition, NiUnaMenos protesters demanded harsher punishments for those convicted of femicide, government funding of anti-femicide law implementation, and official statistics on the occurrences of gender violence and femicide in Argentina.
The judge Elena Highton announced that the Supreme Court of Argentina would set up a registry of femicides.
October 2016 protest
16-year-old Lucía Pérez was abducted from outside of her school in Mar del Plata on October 8, 2016. The girl was dropped off at a local hospital by her assailants, who claimed that she was suffering from a drug overdose. Her clothes and body had been washed previous to her arrival at the hospital in an attempt to hide her injuries. Lucia had been raped repeatedly, sodomized by a foreign object, drugged, and beaten. She died from cardiac arrest that resulted from being impaled in the chest by a wooden spike. Three suspects were arrested and charged with murder, rape, and aggravated concealment, among other crimes in relation to her death.
On October 19, 2016, thousands of people walked out of their jobs and homes in cities across Argentina and other countries in response to her murder. In Buenos Aires alone, over 100,000 people gathered in front of the president’s palace repeating their demands for action on the government’s behalf. Denoting the day "Black Wednesday", women and girls filled the streets in an attempt to give an identity and a voice to those who had been victim to femicide and gender violence.