Women of Mexico Are Protesting for Gender Equality on International Women’s Day
In Mexico, the killings of women and young girls have increased dramatically in recent years. Recent protests are to bring awareness to killings, sexual assaults, and grisly mutilations by men in the country.
Due to this, women wanted to express their anger by marching in Mexico City on the day of International Women's Day by "disappearing."
Women decided to skip school, stop doing chores and not attend their jobs just to show the country what will happen in a day or two without them.The series of highly publicized killings in Mexico led to more debate and protests against gender violence.
An ex-wife of an influential technology entrepreneur was shot to death last November after testifying in a child custody case. There was also a young woman that was skinned and disemboweled by her own boyfriend last February.
A 7-year-old girl was kidnapped outside her school and sexually abused and her body was disposed of in a plastic bag that was found in an empty lot.
Those were just some cases that have been happening to the women in Mexico.
According to Araceli Osorio, the mother of Lesvy Berlin who was strangled to death by her boyfriend said that the march will be a message of sorority and anger.
The march was to give justice not only to those women who are no longer with them, but also to the women that have become victims in their own households.
The government statistics show that every day in Mexico there are more than 10 women being slain, making the country of Mexico too dangerous for young girls and women.
According to the coordinator of the gender unit of the Office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights in Mexico, Nira Cardenas, said that the violence against women and young girls are very serious that it becomes alarming to them.
In addition to this, half of the population is at high risk of violence and this has become a major problem.
The number of women who participated in this year's march is already expectedly higher than those previous marches. Feminists and activists are said to be joining the annual march.
Meanwhile, the director of advocacy group EQUIS Justice for Women, Ana Pecova said that Mexico is the country of rights but only on paper.
Ever since the killings of Mexican women in 2011 the sentences were at the minimum than those regular homicides.
The government lacks the tools, motivation and the capabilities to investigate these issues, leaving the family members of the victims to pursue those suspects on their own.
Also, many of the mothers have been complaining of their missing girls but were immediately dismissed as runaways and were said to be suicides instead of them being killed.
Mexican women hope that there will be gender equality where men and women will share chores inside their homes and they also hope that incidences of domestic abuse will soon be solved and punish those suspects.
Mexican women seek justice for those women and young girls who died innocently in the hands of people who are brutal to do such crimes without thinking twice for their actions.