Women in Mexico Call for National Strike to Protest Femicides

The murders of women in Mexico have made headlines but despite global attention femicide in the country continues to worsen. As a result, Mexicanas are now uniting for a national 24-hour strike on March 9. There were 1,006 femicides in 2019 according to the Mexican government, which is a 10 percent increase from the previous year. But it’s believed that there are more murders that aren’t accounted for, according to Maria Salguero, who maps femicides in Mexico and found that 3,825 women were killed last year, she tells HipLatina. In January 2020, Salguero has already recorded 320 femicides. This violence against women along with gender inequality and rampant machismo is why women are mobilizing to show what a day without women would be like.

“So many of our slogans and mottos — like, ‘The revolution will be feminist,’ or ‘The future is feminist’ — they talked about this moment,” Arussi Unda, the spokeswoman for Las Brujas del Mar, a feminist collective from Veracruz, told the NY Times. “It seems like the moment might already be here.”

✝️ Hoy te queremos contar una realidad que nos duele, nos enoja y nos impulsa a exigir: la de la violencia que sufrimos las mujeres ♀️#NiUnaMenos #VivasNosQueremos #JuntasHastaLaVida #8M #UnDiaSinNosotras @DeniseDresserG @YalitzaAparicio @CeciliaSuarezOF @catalinapordios pic.twitter.com/gt1pJNKKPL

— CMDPDH (@CMDPDH) February 27, 2020

The event is being promoted with the hashtags #UNDÍASINNOSOTRAS and #UnDiaSinMujeres. According to El Universal, women abroad can show support by wearing purple and protesting outside the Mexican consulate and embassies. The movement has garnered international support as well as across the country with many government leaders, businesses, and schools advocating the cause.

Mexico City’s mayor Claudia Sheinbaum tweeted that the administration is mainly made up of women and that they’re working toward eradicating discrimination and gender inequality. While Laura Rojas, the president of the lower house of the Congress, guaranteed to authorize payment for women San Lázaro in Mexico City who participate in the strike in.

La Mesa Directiva ha decidido otorgar facilidades a las trabajadoras de la @Mx_Diputados que decidan sumarse a #UnDiaSinNosotras, y propondremos a los coordinadores de los grupos parlamentarios que hagan lo mismo con las trabajadoras de los grupos.#DesdeElCongreso pic.twitter.com/IAou7LtU6F

— Laura_Rojas_ (@Laura_Rojas_) February 20, 2020

This month alone two women were brutally murdered which only fueled the movement and local feminist collectives to organize the strike. On Feb. 18 radio personality Aracely Alcocer Carmona – known by her stage name Bárbara Greco –  was murdered in front of her parent’s home in Juárez. The 37-year-old worked as a radio host on La Poderosa 107.5 FM and mainly focused on spirituality but had recently spoken up about femicide, according to EJ Central. Ingrid Escamilla was a 25-year-old resident of Mexico City who was stabbed, skinned and disemboweled when her body was discovered Feb. 9 and a two days later, 7-year-old Fátima Cecilia Aldrighett was abducted from her school in Mexico City and later discovered wrapped in a plastic bag next to a construction site just outside the capital. The murder of artist and activist Isabel Cabanillas on Jan. 18 sparked an outcry and feminist collective Hijas de su Maquilera Madre, which Cabanillas was a member of, organized a demonstration later that month.

Now instead of occupying public spaces, the approach for the March 9 strike is to have women strike by staying home from work and public spaces in Mexico completely as a stance against gender violence, with the slogan “El nueve nadie se mueve.” This comes after the protests expected to take place March 8, International Women’s Day, where hundreds will take to the streets.

“Let’s join this symbolic protest, let us stop our activities for a single day so that they realize that they are forgetting 52 percent of the population,” read the call to action.